page_title: Bentonville, Arkansas
section_title: Early statehood and Civil War
hierarchical_section_title: Bentonville, Arkansas / History / Early statehood and Civil War
caption_attribution_description: English: Terry Block Building in Bentonville, Arkansas NRHP: 82004613.
context_page_description: Bentonville is the ninth-largest city in Arkansas, United States and the county seat of Benton County. The city is centrally located in the county with Rogers adjacent to the east. The city is the birthplace and world headquarters of Walmart, the world's largest retailer. It is one of the four main cities in the three-county Northwest Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is ranked 109th in terms of population in the United States with 463,204 residents in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau. The city itself had a population of 35,301 at the 2010 Census, with an estimated population of 54,909 in 2019.
context_section_description: Two years after Arkansas received statehood in 1836, thousands of Cherokee people from Georgia passed through Benton County as part of the Trail of Tears route to the Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. Although no Civil War battles were fought inside Bentonville, the city was occupied by both armies and saw almost all of its buildings burned, either by opposing armies or guerrilla outlaws. Bentonville was a staging point for the Confederate army prior to the Battle of Pea Ridge, fought about 12 miles (19 km) northeast of town, and the town saw a brief skirmish just prior to the battle. The city began to rebuild about a decade after incorporation on April 3, 1873, with many of these Reconstruction Era buildings today serving as the oldest structures in Bentonville.
  After the war, the area established a vibrant apple industry, with Benton County becoming the leading apple producing county in the nation in 1901.
caption: The Terry Block Building is the southwest corner of the Bentonville Town Square. Built in 1888, the building now houses the Walmart Museum, adjacent to the original Walton's Five and Dime.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-W510", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "1.1200", "Image DateTime": "2012:03:23 18:08:58", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Copyright 2009", "Image ExifOffset": "312", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1000", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6104", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:03:23 14:02:06", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:03:23 14:02:06", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "318337/119750", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "9409/1000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "2971/1000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2971/1000", "EXIF MeteringMode": "MultiSpot", "EXIF LightSource": "Day white fluorescent (N 4600 - 5400K)", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "47/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2980", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2233", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4000", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3000", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "852", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "26", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "9719745a754ec9cc8d39a9b4281e2a86"}