Benton County Historical Society

06/12/2026

Congratulations to our good friend Randy Townzen!

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Join us for Pie & Public Art at the Bentonville Public Library!

We invite you to enjoy pie while we talk about public art in Bentonville — its history, the process behind it, the people who help make it happen, and how community members can get more involved. Thanks to Kyle Yazzie of Downtown Bentonville Incorporated, the program will include a special short film presentation about Bentonville’s first public mural: Randy Townzen’s Legend of Hidden Harvest, which turns 40 this month.

Saturday, June 13
2:30–4:00 pm
Bentonville Public Library
Registration not required.

Panelists include:
Dana Doughty, Bentonville History Museum
Randy Townzen, Artist and Bentonville History Museum Board Member
Shelli Kerr, The City of Bentonville Arkansas Planning Department
Tom Hoehn, Public Art Advisory Board Member
OZ Art NWA Representative

Why pie? Because pie is good. And public art is good.

Special thanks to Gooseberry Handmade Pies for donating the deliciousness 🥧

06/11/2026

This Bella Vista house had three names and a few tall tales attached to it, before someone burned it down.

Located on a hill above what is now Euston Road, the large two-story frame house was built by Wilson Brown - who named it Rago. The house featured a cupola, bedrooms on the second floor, additional sleeping space in the attic, and a first floor that served triple duty: family bedrooms, a general store, and a Post Office.

Over the years, the house acquired several names. Wilson Brown named it RAGO. Neighbors referred to it as the Wilson Brown House. And then there was the “the Stage House.”

But before we get to that story, it's worth taking a moment to appreciate Wilson Brown himself.

Brown was much more than a storekeeper and postmaster. He was also an entrepreneur, horticulturalist, and experimenter. The family maintained a large vineyard and bottled their own wine. Their orchards produced pears, peaches, and apples, which were sold fresh or turned into apple butter. They dried apples in an evaporator building, bottled catsup, canned tomatoes under the "Oh Yes" brand, and harvested honey from numerous beehives.

According to family members and friends, Brown even attempted to develop a blight-resistant chestnut by crossing chestnut trees with chinquapins after disease devastated native chestnut populations. (We were unable to find out whether the experiment succeeded.)

Now, back to the story of the "Stage House", which begins on June 23, 1965 when The Benton County Democrat published a photograph of the house with banners proclaiming: "In the 1890's This Was Known as REGO, ARKANSAS, General Store, U.S. Post Office" And "STAGECOACH & PONY EXPRESS RELAY STATION."

The accompanying caption claimed the site had once been a stagecoach stop and had even been connected to a southern route of the Pony Express. It was a great story - with just one problem…

Actually, make that three problems…

The Pony Express ceased operations in 1861—more than three decades before the house was built in 1897. The post office was named RAGO, not REGO. And there was no evidence of a stagecoach road running near the Wilson Brown farm.

In short, somebody appears to have created a very good story—and then they repeated it.

Despite being historically inaccurate, the tale proved durable. It was published again in 1971 and became attached to the house's identity for some time after.

Sadly, despite all the interesting stories connected to it, the house was burned down by vandals in 1976.










Sources:
George Phillips, "Wilson Brown and the Rago Post Office," The Benton County Pioneer, Vol. 28, Issue 1, Spring 1983
Xyta Lucas, "A House Called Rago," The Weekly Vista, February 10, 2021, https://bvwv.nwaonline.com/news/2021/feb/10/rago/

06/10/2026

Did you know Rogers once had its very own Harvey House—the same famous restaurant chain that fed railroad travelers across the American West?

In September 1996, Tom Duggan shared this wonderful photograph with the Benton County Historical Society. Taken around 1900, it shows not only the Frisco passenger and freight depots in Rogers, but also the impressive two-story Fred Harvey Dining Hall standing in the background.

All of these buildings once stood between Elm and Poplar Streets, near what is now Frisco Park. Sadly, the dining hall was destroyed by fire in 1910 and never rebuilt. The depots themselves would also be lost to fire in the 1920s.

After the Frisco Railroad arrived in Rogers in 1881, the town grew rapidly. And by 1883, a larger passenger depot had been built to accommodate this growing area. At the height of train travel, as many as thirteen passenger trains came through Rogers each day, all carrying hungry travelers.

To serve them, the Fred Harvey Dining Hall opened in 1898 on the south side of the depot. Trains stopped for about twenty minutes, giving passengers just enough time to eat before continuing their journey.

According to the Rogers Historical Museum, the building contained a kitchen, lunch room, and formal dining room - which was surprisingly elegant, with fine china, silverware, white tablecloths, cloth napkins, fresh greenery on the tables, elegant chandeliers, and even a pot-bellied stove. Imagine stepping off the train in Rogers and finding this experience waiting for you. It had to be a refreshing change.

By 1907, however, things were changing. The dining room was remodeled and replaced with a short-order counter. The belief was that twenty minutes simply wasn't enough time to serve full meals efficiently. Restaurant traffic peaked around 1906–1907, when six trains a day stopped in Rogers for service. By 1910, that number had dropped to just one train per day, and by 1915 the Frisco had shifted most of its food service to dining and café cars on the trains themselves.

The era of the grand railroad dining hall in Rogers was relatively brief—but for a few years, travelers passing through Benton County could enjoy an elegant meal right beside the tracks









Sources:
Tom Duggan, "Fred Harvey Dining Room in Rogers," The Benton County Pioneer, Vol. 41, Issue 3, July–September 1996
James F. Hales, "Four Depots Serve Bustling Railroad Town," Rogers Historical Museum, https://www.rogershistoricalmuseum.org/rogers-train-depots.htm

06/09/2026

It seems that calling another town "Poverty Peak" was considered fighting words in 1890s Benton County.

Before Gravette was established in August of 1893, Sulphur Springs was a thriving resort community. One of its leading citizens was Charles Hibler, described as a "portly, genial live wire" and the financial force behind much of the town's success. In fact, some people referred to Sulphur Springs simply as "Hibler's Town."

But then the railroad arrived, and once it reached Gravette a real rivalry sprang up between the two communities. Never one to miss an opportunity, Hibler (who was also an author and poet) decided to take a jab at the new town. He penned a verse calling Gravette "Poverty Peak." The nickname caught on, much to the annoyance of Gravette's residents.

Unfortunately for Gravette founder E. T. Gravett, poetry wasn’t one of his talents, and he struggled to come up with a suitable response - until help arrived from an unexpected source.

Living in a cabin near Gravette was a broad-shouldered, "Lincoln type old gentleman" named James Rhamey. Though he may not have looked like a poet, those who knew him said he possessed a wit that was "sharp as a tack."

Taking up his pencil under the pen name Ben E. Dick, Rhamey fired back with a poem titled "Down to Brimstone Town." It quickly became a local favorite.

Here are the opening stanzas for your enjoyment:

From Poverty Peak, where the hill slopes down
Four miles and a half is Brimstone Town;
With its brimstone springs stuck down in the mud,
Which “Chawley” says is good for the blood.
Down, down, down to Brimstone Town.

The hills slope down to Brimstone Town,
The sleepy old town that is seeking renown;
By claiming the water is healthy and rich,
For "Chawley" says it is good for the itch.
Down, down, down to Brimstone Town.

And our favorite stanza:
There is one more thing that town contains,
Take it away and nothing remains,
This is a fact, and I want all to know it,
I speak of the wonderful Brimstone poet;
Down, down, down to Brimstone Town.

Fortunately, time seems to have softened the rivalry. In later years, James Rhamey became Gravette's postmaster, and it is said that he and Hibler eventually patched up their feud.

Still, old-timers reportedly chuckled for decades whenever someone mentioned either "Poverty Peak" or "Brimstone Town." It just goes to show that our county's sense of humor has some deep roots.









Joseph Cowan

Sources:
“Down, Down to Brimstone Town,” The Benton County Pioneer, Volume 34, Issue 1, Spring 1989
The Gravette News Herald

06/06/2026

Remembering D Day. Thank you to all who served!

06/05/2026

Ice Cream Socials have a long history both across the U.S., and with the Benton County Historical Society! This year's Ice Cream Social will be on June 21 at 2:00p.m. We'd love for you to drop by for a scoop of your favorite flavor, and to say hi!

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The ice cream social was not just dessert. It was community glue. It was a reason to leave the house, shake a hand, laugh with someone you barely knew, and let the kids run wild while the adults caught up on life. It was one of the most wholesome traditions this country ever perfected, and it deserv...

06/04/2026

Bentonville Lions Club vs Rogers Lions Club? In a football game?

Have we mentioned that we sometimes find some pretty wonderful surprises tucked inside old books? BCHS recently received a donation that included a 1946 Bentonville Tiger yearbook, and when one member of our preservation team opened it up, this fell out.

Initially it looked like a listing of local businesses who might have sponsored the yearbook.

And honestly, we would have been delighted with that, because it’s packed with advertisements from local businesses such as Garner’s Grocery on Second Street in Rogers, Croxdale Grocery and Market, Allen’s Market and Grocery, Ozark Sport Shop, A.D. Callison Funeral Home, Putman’s of Bentonville (“The Style Headquarters!”), and the Bank of Bentonville.

But - when we turned it over and realized what we were holding a flyer advertising a “Foot Ball Game” between the Rogers Lions Club and the Bentonville Lions Club, scheduled for October 30 at the Bentonville Athletic Field—complete with player lineups for both teams.

We weren’t able to uncover details of the game, but we did learn that football games sponsored by local Lions Clubs were pretty common across the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Community pride, football, fundraising, and local bragging rights must have made a pretty good combination.

And thanks to one forgotten flyer tucked inside a yearbook for nearly 80 years, we got to have a little glimpse of that wonderful tradition.

06/03/2026

You just never know what you’ll find tucked inside an old book. As we continue with repairing Goodspeed’s History of Arkansas (1889), a surprise appeared between the pages: an incredibly thin piece of old stationery bearing the name J. Van Butler and the words “The Locomotive” in beautiful lettering.

And that sent us straight down the old research rabbit hole. Who was J. Van Butler? What was “The Locomotive”? And why does the paper say Muskogee, I.T.?

It turned out that J. Van Butler was actually written about in Goodspeed’s History of Arkansas! According to Goodspeed’s, Butler was born in Georgia in 1866 and came with his family to Benton County in 1878 when his father settled east of Siloam Springs. Remarkably, Goodspeed notes that outside of only six months of formal schooling, Butler educated himself largely through personal study.

In 1886, J. Van Butler entered the newspaper business when he and his brother purchased a printing office in Springdale. They published a paper called The Locomotive beginning Christmas Day of 1886. The Springdale venture lasted only a few months before the brothers relocated to Siloam Springs, where they revived The Locomotive on August 26, 1887.

Sadly, Butler’s life would be a short one. In May of 1895, the Bentonville Sun published a heartfelt obituary following his death from consumption at only 29 years old. The paper remembered him as “always of a bright, cheerful nature,” and noted that “some of the brightest editorial and comical narratives of Arkansas journalism were found in his paper.”

As for the mystery? The stationery also lists Muskogee, I.T. (Indian Territory - not computer support). And we haven’t been able to find a connection between either J. Van Butler or The Locomotive and Muskogee. At least, not yet.

Perhaps one of our readers knows the answer.

Moments like this are one of our favorite parts of preservation work. You begin repairing a book… and suddenly you’re chasing the story of a long-forgotten newspaper editor through Arkansas and Indian Territory.









Sources:
The History of Benton County, Arkansas, Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889
Obituary of J. Van Butler, Bentonville Sun, May 30, 1895
Gravette News, June 1, 1895
The Arkansas Locomotive (Springdale, Ark.) 1886-1887, Library of Congress Directory of U.S. Newspapers

06/02/2026

It was The Great Escape - Benton County style! Well - almost…

Our favorite archivists, Mike Carney, recently shared a fascinating 1911 newspaper article titled “Prisoners Escape” from The Democrat—and it tells quite a story.

A little background first: Benton County’s previous jail had been destroyed by fire in 1905, leading to the construction of a new jail at 212 N. Main in Bentonville. The handsome two-story brick building was designed by architect A. O. Clark and construction was completed in 1911. It included office space and living quarters for the sheriff’s family, as well as the sheriff’s office and jail cells (which were located on the second floor).

And it appears that their brand-new jail came with a very short “escape-proof” warranty.

According to the article, around 4:30a.m. on the morning of September 11, six of the twelve prisoners in the brand-new jail made their ‘daring’ escape.

First, they escaped the inner cage. Then they went to the east end of the building and dug a hole through the brick wall before lowering themselves from a second-story window using a rope made from… sheets (yep - you read that right, bedsheets).

But - the story gets better. The newspaper explained that the new jail had automatic locks on the cell doors, but they hadn’t been used because “the combinations are very intricate.” (We’re betting that changed pretty quick!) Besides, it was assumed prisoners wouldn’t try escaping with the sheriff living in the building.

Unfortunately, Sheriff Andrew J. Russell happened to be away that night.

And somehow…the prisoners knew it.

On the bright side, the paper reported that three of the escapees were “back at the old stand for supper” the very same evening.

Meanwhile, the other three were still on the run.

But perhaps the most surprising detail came at the end of the article: the six prisoners who stayed behind apparently could have escaped, but chose not to. In fact, they were the ones who gave the alarm once the others got out.

So in the end, half the jail broke out, half stayed put, and the brand-new jail immediately acquired a rather memorable first chapter in its history.







Sources:
“The Democrat,” Sept. 11, 1911
https://theclio.com/entry/202644
Historical Review of Arkansas: Its Commerce, Industry and Modern Affairs by Fay Hempstead
Courtesy of archivist Michael L. Carney