To spot the Bentonville Third Street Historic District, look just ahead on both sides of SE Third Street for a stretch of charming, colorful wooden houses nestled behind clusters of leafless trees.
Welcome to a neighborhood where every porch and picket fence has a tale to tell! Imagine it's the 1880s: you can almost hear the distant whistle of the rail line, signaling the arrival of new dreams and styles to Bentonville. Before the railroad rolled in, Benton County had never seen anything quite like these houses. Suddenly, builders went all out, filling these two blocks with 14 beautiful homes, most standing proud at one or two stories high, each framed in good, sturdy wood-except, of course, for the show-off of the block, the Elliott House, dressed up in fancy brick, mixing Italianate arches with Second Empire flair. Picture neighbors strolling in Sunday best, swapping fresh gossip over the white fences, with the faint scent of cut grass and the clopping of buggy wheels in the air. Fast forward to 1993, and these homes made the big leagues, earning a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. So, as you wander this peaceful, leafy street, just know you’re walking through Bentonville’s living scrapbook-where every creak of a porch swing has a story worth a smile.
