Downtown Memory Lane (EDITORS NOTE)

There is an activity level on the downtown square in Bentonville that hasn’t been seen since … well, maybe ever.

A terrific cover story written by Richard Massey about developments in the downtown food and hospitality industry explains just the latest example.

Reading it sent me down a reflective rabbit hole that dates back to my arrival in Northwest Arkansas.

In January 2001, I loaded up my pickup truck and a rented U-Haul trailer and left a job in Arkadelphia working for former State Sen. Percy Malone for Bentonville.

I had a job lined up working for the daily newspaper, The Benton County Daily Record, and one of the best parts was being in an office near the square. The BCDR offices were just a block up from the square, on Southwest A Street, and I thought to myself, “This is going to be pretty cool.”

Except, the downtown square didn’t offer much. Cecil Turner had his restaurant doing good lunch business (The Station Café is still going strong) and I would occasionally walk down to Gene’s Barber Shop (it, unfortunately has closed) and let Clovis Hance cut my hair. Other than that, there wasn’t much that would regularly draw me or anyone else to the square. And certainly not on a weeknight.

A vivid memory of mine is watching Indiana upset Duke one Thursday evening during the 2002 NCAA Tournament, then sprinting out of the newsroom and into the night, heading to the square for a moment of exuberant celebration.

This is what Tar Heel fans do, if you didn’t know.

I still remember the quiet darkness, skipping along and hollerin’ down Central Avenue. You might think this odd, but it really wasn’t. There wasn’t a soul around, and why would there be? The work day was done, the sun was down and the sidewalks rolled up.

Thanks to many different variables through the years, namely a multibillion-dollar art museum, the square now rarely sleeps.

Result? You may still see me hootin’ and hollerin’ somewhere around the square on a given weeknight.

But, I won’t be alone.