Late on the evening of Sept. 18, 1964, Walnut Ridge businessman Jack Allison saw a large plane headed toward the city's airport. He asked three teenage boys to go see who was on the plane. When the door opened, the Beatles stepped out. The band members had left a concert at Dallas that night and were on their way for some rest and relaxation at a dude ranch near Alton, Mo.
Their plane was too big to land at most airports in the area, but Walnut Ridge's airport had long runways. It had served as the Walnut Ridge Army Flying School during World War II. Night landings were rare at Walnut Ridge in those days, so a plane circling at midnight created plenty of attention. A smaller plane was already at the airport to take the band to Missouri. Word spread about the stop, and it was speculated that the Beatles would depart from Walnut Ridge the following Sunday.
"While most people attended Sunday morning church services, 200 to 300 people descended on the airport in anticipation of the Beatles' return," Michael Bowman writes for the Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas. "The plane that had carried the group across the United States sat on the runway waiting. Parents snapped photographs of their children next to the plane. Home movie cameras captured the crowd's excitement. The sounds of teenagers singing Beatles songs could be heard."
They didn't realize that Paul McCartney and George Harrison had arrived an hour early and were watching from an old truck parked across the runway. A small plane carrying John Lennon and Ringo Starr later landed. All four Beatles boarded the larger plane and left for their final U.S. concert of the year.
On this day, I'm nearing the end of a trip that has taken me across north Arkansas on U.S. 412. I wind up spending the better part of the day in Walnut Ridge, which changed the name of a downtown street to Abbey Road, erected a sculpture of the Beatles and holds a music festival called Beatles at the Ridge. The town also has a guitar-shaped plaza to honor musicians who played at clubs up and down U.S. 67.
Unlike many Delta towns, Walnut Ridge isn't bleeding population. It had 4,890 residents in the 2010 census and now has a population of about 5,000. For those who like music history, it's a fun place to visit.
In September 2011, civic leaders unveiled the monument downtown that's designed to look like the cover of the album "Abbey Road." The next year, the nearby guitar-shaped plaza was constructed. In 2009, the Arkansas Legislature had designated a 111-mile stretch of U.S. 67 through Jackson, Lawrence, Randolph and Clay counties as Rock 'n' Roll Highway 67.
"The term rockabilly is defined as a mixture of blues, country and western and rhythm and blues music that saw its biggest popularity beginning in the post-World War II era and lasted until around the time of the so-called British Invasion of the early 1960s," writes Arkansas music historian Keith Merckx. "Original rockabilly artists included Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis along with noted Arkansans Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Sonny Burgess and Billy Lee Riley. These same musicians are cited as influences by later musical legends--ranging from the Beatles to Bob Dylan--who credit rockabilly as an inspiration for their own distinctive styles of music.
"Establishments on U.S. 67 that hosted these acts included Bob King's King of Clubs in Swifton, the Silver Moon Club in Newport and the rooftop of the Skylark Drive-in Theater in Pocahontas. ... The idea to honor the road originated in 2005 with Pocahontas musician Gary Gazaway (who has performed and recorded with the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Steve Winwood, Joe Cocker and Phish). As a lifelong resident of the area, Gazaway had long recognized the significance of the highway as a musical artery."
In addition to capitalizing on its music traditions, Walnut Ridge has done an excellent job of erecting interpretive signage downtown to give the history of the city's buildings. Walnut Ridge has its share of old buildings, but is also home to one of the newer courthouses in Arkansas. The Lawrence County Courthouse was completed in 1966.
In 1870, the Legislature split Lawrence County into two judicial districts. Walnut Ridge served the eastern half of the county, and Powhatan served the western half. A two-story courthouse built at Walnut Ridge in 1897 lasted until only 1900. In 1901, county offices moved into a building designed by famous Arkansas architect Charles Thompson. In 1963, Lawrence County residents voted to consolidate the two county seats at Walnut Ridge. The courthouse cost $450,000 to construct.
After leaving Walnut Ridge, we continue the trek east on U.S. 412 and cross into Greene County. The Cache River forms the county line. It's the last county on a trip that began on the Oklahoma border at Siloam Springs. Greene County was once an isolated place surrounded by swamps, but it has boomed in recent years alongside Craighead County to the south. Greene County's population almost doubled from 24,765 in the 1970 census to 42,090 in 2010.
Crowley's Ridge had been isolated by the St. Francis River bottoms to the north and east along with the Cache River and Black River bottoms to the west. The drainage of that swampland, much of which occurred in the early 1900s, led to growth. We pass through the community of Light and begin climbing Crowley's Ridge before entering Paragould, named after railroad magnates Jay Gould and James Paramore.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.