Learn Bentonville A history of Bentonville, AR

Osage people living in Missouri used this part of the Ozarks as hunting ground. By the time the first white settlers arrived, a few years before the town was established in 1837, the Osage were no longer hunting here.

Arkansas became a state in 1836. The legislature created Benton County on September 30 of that year and called for the election of a three-man commission to select a county seat. On November 7, 1837, the commissioners reported that they had laid out a square and 136 lots for Bentonville, in the middle of the new county.

The square is still the center of town.

One group of Cherokee people on the Trail of Tears passed through Bentonville in 1837–1838, on the way to Indian Territory.

Bentonville was incorporated on April 3, 1873, but the hardest years had already happened. The Battle of Pea Ridge was fought about twelve miles northeast, on March 7–8, 1862. An action in Bentonville came just before that battle, troops passed through town before and after it, and there was another skirmish in Bentonville the next year.

Forces from both sides burned most of the buildings, including the courthouse. They burned buildings whose owners they suspected of sympathy with the other side, and buildings the other army might use. Outlaws burned more. By the end of the war, only about a dozen houses were still standing.

Recovery did not begin in earnest until the 1880s. Tobacco production in Benton County had far surpassed that of any other county in Arkansas. Prices fell in the 1890s, and farmers turned to other crops. Apples were the most successful. In 1901 Benton County led the nation in apple production, with 2.5 million bushels.

The Frisco railroad was finished through eastern Benton County in the summer of 1881, but it missed Bentonville by almost six miles. Rogers was established on that line. In 1883 the Bentonville Railroad completed a track to Rogers. Those lines carried apples to larger markets.

The census counted 2,942 people in Bentonville in 1950.

Sam and Helen Walton opened a Ben Franklin five-and-dime in Newport, Arkansas, on September 1, 1945. Sales grew from $80,000 to $225,000 in three years. The landlord would not renew the lease and gave the location to his own son.

During the family’s military service, Helen Walton decided she would never again move to a town of more than 10,000 people. The family moved to Bentonville on May 1, 1950.

By May 9, 1950, with help from Helen’s father, Walton had bought the Harrison Variety Store on the square and opened for business with a one-day remodeling sale. The store was still a Ben Franklin franchise, but it was named Walton’s 5 & 10.

Customers took goods off the shelves and brought them to the clerk. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas calls it the first self-service variety store in Arkansas and the third in the country.

Discounting was spreading through chains such as Kmart and Woolco. Walton asked Ben Franklin to cut its margins by half so he could sell cheaper. The franchiser refused. The first Wal-Mart opened in Rogers on July 2, 1962. Bentonville remained the company’s home.

Walmart was incorporated in 1969, the year it began building a warehouse and general office in Bentonville. The first distribution center and the home office opened there in 1970. That year the company offered 300,000 shares to the public at $16.50 each. The early Walmart stores were concentrated in rural towns. By the end of 1980, 330 Walmart stores were open.

President George H. W. Bush gave Walton the Presidential Medal of Freedom on March 17, 1992. Walton died of cancer on April 5, 1992, in Little Rock, and is buried in Bentonville Cemetery.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas credits the city’s later growth largely to Walmart suppliers who opened offices in Bentonville. The population rose from 2,942 in 1950 to 54,164 in 2020.

The 2020 census counted 54,164 people in Bentonville, up from 35,301 in 2010. On January 17, 2025, Walmart opened the first two office buildings of a new home office on 350 acres in Bentonville. The campus soon included twelve office buildings.

Alice Walton founded Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which opened in November 2011. In February 2020, the Momentary, another art museum, opened in a repurposed building downtown.

The square still holds the Walmart Museum, in the space of Walton’s 5 & 10. The restaurant list is the practical map of the city around it, and the first-visit guide is the order to walk it in.