REX NELSON: Benton: boomtown

Schools, job training, growing businesses and attractive amenities expand opportunities in this Saline County community.

I'm sitting in the offices of the Benton Area Chamber of Commerce and looking across Market Street at a sign that says United Steelworkers. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, the USW is the largest industrial labor union in the country. It once had a major influence on politics in Saline County. Those were the days when Reynolds Metals Co. and Alcoa dominated the county's economy.

As I stare at the sign and remember what Benton was like when I was a boy visiting my grandparents in the 1960s, I'm struck by how much this place has changed.

Back then, Saline County was one of the most Democratic counties in the state. The county seat of Benton was a blue-collar enclave where the whistle from the Owosso Manufacturing Co.'s furniture plant could be heard throughout the day. The sight of men wearing hard hats and carrying lunch pails wasn't unusual.

Fueled by white flight out of Little Rock during the 1960s and 1970s, Saline County is now solidly Republican. With suburban housing developments sprawling across much of the county and strip malls a common sight, it's a different world from the place where my father was raised after being born at Benton in 1924. He saw the county make the transition from agriculture to mining and manufacturing. Rather than strip malls, people did their shopping in those days at Gingles Mercantile in downtown Benton or general merchandise stores in communities such as Congo and Avilla.

"The discovery of bauxite ore near Hurricane Creek in Saline County in 1887 by the state geologist, John C. Branner, changed the economic outlook for the county throughout the 1900s, moving it away from an agricultural economy toward an industrial one," Eddie Landreth writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "In 1893, the Pittsburgh Reduction Co. [later known as Alcoa] established the company town of Bauxite in the bauxite mining area where thousands of workers from the area were employed. World War II created a demand for aluminum to feed the war effort, and two major firms, Alcoa and Reynolds, built mining operations in the county. Throughout the war, the mines were kept in constant operation. After the war, the plants were updated and expanded, raising the standard of living throughout Saline County. The ore deposits were eventually depleted, and mining ceased in 1990. The Reynolds plant was dismantled and the mining pits reclaimed."

In the past 30 years, Saline County's population has grown by 86 percent. It has grown 11 percent since the 2010 census to almost 120,000 people. The percentage of Saline County residents with at least a bachelor's degree is higher than the state average, household income is higher than the state average, and the percentage of those living in poverty is less than half the state average.

That's a far cry from the Great Depression years when my grandfather, who was the Benton street commissioner, would wake his three children before daylight each Sunday morning so they could go downtown with him and help pick up trash (the stores stayed open late on Saturday nights in those days) before people began arriving for church.

My father graduated from Benton High School in the spring of 1942. The United States had entered World War II the previous December following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, and pressure was intense to expand the aluminum plants as quickly as possible. My father went to work that summer for a construction company known as Chicago Bridge & Iron, one of the contractors working on the plant expansion efforts. He was paid union wages, making more at age 18 than his father had ever earned.

My father had been a football star for the Benton Panthers and was being recruited by head coach Bill Walton at what's now Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia. My grandparents had never attended college and wanted their son to have a college degree. They were also Baptist and thus had a soft spot for Ouachita. When my father informed them that he had decided to stay on with Chicago Bridge & Iron due to the lucrative wages, my grandmother called Walton and told him not to let my father come home from a recruiting visit to Arkadelphia. It could best be described as a friendly kidnapping. He enrolled in college that fall.

If my father were still alive, he wouldn't recognize Benton these days.

In the 1940 census, Benton had 3,502 residents. That grew to 10,399 in 1960. The population almost tripled to 30,681 in the 2010 census. From a percentage standpoint, even that growth paled in comparison to what happened at Bryant. The community had 173 residents in 1940, 737 in 1960 and 16,688 in 2010. It became in essence a new town.

At the chamber offices on this summer morning, I'm listening to a presentation by Lamont Cornwell, executive director of the Saline County Economic Development Corp. Cornwell is pointing out that the county boomed because it has quality public school districts, affordable housing and low crime rates. He says there must be more of an emphasis on keeping those who grow up in Saline County there as adults. To do that, businesses must grow.

On July 16, the Saline County Quorum Court voted to put a three-eighths of a cent sales tax increase on the November ballot. If it passes, proceeds from the tax will be used to fund a $43 million career and technical center southwest of the Saline River along Interstate 30. Benton has annexed land on the other side of the river. The tax will end once bonds have been paid off.

Seven school districts--Benton, Bryant, Bauxite, Harmony Grove, Glen Rose, Fountain Lake and Sheridan--agreed to be part of the project. Classes in areas such as automotive technology, welding, health sciences, information technology and computer engineering will be taught through an agreement with the College of the Ouachitas, a community college at Malvern.

"We looked at centers across the country before designing this one," Cornwell says. "Folks in the counties north of Dallas told us that Toyota decided to move thousands of jobs there because of a center like the one we've proposed for Saline County. Any high school student in the districts that have partnered with us will be able to attend. I think we've come up with a template that can be duplicated across the state and a concept that will have a positive impact on this county for generations to come."

The center, which will sit on a 22-acre site if the tax increase is approved, will be able to serve almost 1,400 students a day in specialized labs, fabrication studios and other spaces.

"It can be a game-changer for us," says Tom Baxley, who has sold real estate in Saline County for the past 36 years. "Why wouldn't you want to locate your business within a few miles of a place that can turn out trained employees for you? I think we're finally putting all of the pieces together. Good schools and affordable housing are still important, but those things alone are no longer enough. People want a better quality of life. That's why they now ask me about things like parks and trails. The fact is we didn't dream big enough in the past."

In the fall of 2013, Benton residents passed a half-cent sales tax to fund a $49 million project on land adjacent to Interstate 30 that once had been the city's airport. A large electronic sign can be seen from the interstate. A short way down the road is the River Center. It features an aquatic center with a pool, a play area for children, a two-story water slide, a climbing wall and party rooms near the pool. There's a fitness center, aerobics rooms, four basketball courts, eight volleyball courts and an indoor track. The former airport property has a senior activity and wellness center, a new location for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Saline County, soccer fields, softball fields and walking trails.

"We already have 8,400 members at the River Center," says Benton Mayor David Mattingly. "It's gaining a reputation across the state. We host events almost every weekend."

The center is open from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. Saturdays and noon until 6 p.m. Sundays. Adult memberships are $180 annually, and youth and senior memberships are $120 annually.

Benton and Bryant cooperate on initiatives such as the proposed career and technical center. But a little friendly competition never hurts.

"Let's be honest," says Jim Stilwell, a Benton insurance agent and financial adviser who has long been active in civic affairs. "We spent a number of years just sitting here and watching Bryant kick our rear. Now there's a team effort to make sure Benton does its share in the county. That hasn't always been the case."

Nowhere is that friendly rivalry more evident than at the annual Salt Bowl, the season-opening football game between Bryant High School and Benton High School. Since there's not a stadium in Saline County that can hold the fans, it's played at Little Rock's War Memorial Stadium. It usually attracts more than 30,000 spectators, by far the largest crowd each season for any high school football game in the state.

The organizer of the Salt Bowl is Shane Broadway of Bryant, a former speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives, a former state senator and a former director of the state Department of Higher Education. Broadway now works for Arkansas State University, his alma mater.

"We're seeing all of the towns in Saline County work well together," Broadway says. "That has really been a key. Getting the career and technical center on the ballot is a big deal. These school districts don't have the resources on their own to do something like this individually. If the tax passes, though, they'll have access to a facility that's as fine as anything in this part of the country."

Mattingly hopes Benton can now focus on redeveloping its historic downtown, where my father once picked up trash on Sunday mornings. The Saline County Courthouse is one of the most stately in the state. The Saline County Quorum Court appropriated money for a new structure in 1902, and noted architect Charles Thompson of Little Rock was hired. The building was completed that fall at a cost of $31,000.

In 1973, the makers of the movie White Lightning, which starred Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty, filmed scenes in downtown Benton because they were so taken by the courthouse.

A farmers market recently was built in downtown Benton, and nearby C.W. Lewis Stadium, where Benton High School played football games for decades before building a modern facility, has been preserved for soccer and youth football.

"I hope the farmers market is the spark for additional things happening downtown," Mattingly says. "It's all about creating a different attitude about downtown on the part of our residents and then giving them a reason to be downtown after 5 p.m."

Cornwell was like many others when he moved to Saline County. "I came here for the schools," he says. "Now we have so much more to offer."

Editorial on 08/05/2018

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