Bentonville, Arkansas

We are staying, Carthage, Missouri, it is located way down in the southwest corner of Missouri.  The states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas are all just around 40 miles away. 

On Friday we drove to Bentonville, Arkansas to check out Wal-Mart central and to go to the newly opened Crystal Bridges Art Museum.  This museum was founded by one of the Wal-Mart heirs and is free to the public.  We saw a 60 Minutes piece on it and it was just beautiful.  We were not disappointed.  But first, Wal-Mart central.

I am sure most of you know that the headquarters for Wal-Mart is located in Bentonville, Arkansas.  We drove by it, but it was nothing really special, just some buildings with lots and lots of cars in the parking lot.  What was interesting was the downtown square of Bentonville.  They have really made this town square a nice place to visit with restaurants and stores.  The biggest attraction is the Wal-Mart visitor center, which is housed in the original store front for a five and dime store opened by Sam Walton that began the Wal-Mart brand.  His first store was known as Walton’s.  Most fascinating tidbit of information I got out of the visitor center was that if you bought 100 shares of Wal-Mart when it went public in the 60’s you would have paid $1,650.  The shares have split 2 for 1 eleven times since then so you would now have over 200,000 shares valued around $10 million.

Town square

Memorial to confederate soldiers in town square

Where it all started

Sam Walton’s office from Wal-Mart headquarters as it was when he died.

Now on to the museum (www.crystalbridges.org).  What a beautiful facility.  The buildings have a magnificent design and the grounds are nicely landscaped with many walking trails.  The art collection is focused on American Art and works it way from colonial times to present day all very nicely organized. 

This is looking from one gallery over the pond to the dining hall.  The roof of the dining hall and great hall are actually suspended on steel cables, so these two buildings were built from the top down.

Steel tree sculpture at the entrance

Famous Norman Rockwell painting, “Rosie the Riveter”

The grounds around the facility

We had a great time and, except for a small admission charge for a visiting exhibit, it was all free, including the iPod touch for the audio tour.  We had lunch in their dining hall.  The food was good but the views were spectacular.

This is definitely a must see if you are ever in the area as is the town square of Bentonville.  No matter what your feelings are about Wal-Mart they sure have done nice things with the town of Bentonville.