Author: Sydney Nichols Major: English & Art History

I’m equipped with my pen, my notebook, and…a hard hat. I’m standing inside a construction trailer on the site of Crystal Bridges new facility The Momentary opening in February of next year. Tour groups for the former Kraft cheese factory turned contemporary art venue typically include investors and existing staff for the museum. Today, however, the space is peopled by me and my research partners—a group of aspiring historians. Our cohort is comprised of alumni from the Honors College’s spring 2019 forum at Crystal Bridges in which learned about all facets of museum work—fundraising, curating, and living their mission. It was through this class that we were invited to work on a new project: uncovering the multifaceted history of the site of The Momentary.  

Now assuming the address of 507 SE E St. in Bentonville, The Momentary—like much of northwest Arkansas—sits on a plot of land with a rich past. Our research team divided into pairs, claiming different eras to research. Two of us tackled the historical presence of Native Americans in the surrounding area, while my immediate partner Emily Snyder and I took a more site-specific approach, aiming respectively to uncover the industrial and agricultural histories of the plot of land. The Momentary’s first director Lieven Bertels informed us that they suspect the land was once used as an apple orchard, an industry I would come to learn as essential to Benton County’s history. Visiting the facility today, one is apt to recognize the steps Crystal Bridges has taken to repurpose the land’s existing structures. The ducts and pipes once used for the production of different Kraft cheese products have been preserved, giving the building a dynamic and “lived-in” quality that is rare in notoriously sterile contemporary art galleries. What has proved harder to recognize, however, is if there is any evidence of an agricultural history associated with this plot of land.  

Feeling uninformed on the agriculture history of the area and, frankly, on the history of Benton County itself, I asked my anchor of a research mentor Dr. Louise Hancox where I should begin to better understand this portion of northwest Arkansas. She directed me to J. Dickson Black’s History of Benton County 1836-1936, a book full of interesting stories and people as well as an extensive catalogue of the county’s farming history. As I read, I learned that Benton County was once known as the “Land of the Big Red Apple,” bringing in the largest apple yield for a single county in American history in 1901. I was also intrigued to find a couple sources crediting a Cherokee woman from nearby Maysville as the first commercial orchardist in the area. Having gathered a sense just how influential Benton County was in the country’s apple industry in the early decades of the twentieth century, I shifted my focus to finding the owners of the property preceding Kraft Foods. After a lesson in plat-reading from Benton County Archives Manager Toni Fenton, I started my investigation into the worn real estate taxation books, compiling a list of previous owners.   

Now, equipped with the understanding to read plats and interpret tax records, I am continuing my research in hopes of uncovering stories of more specific details about the families that have owned the piece of land throughout time. My next steps will include visiting collections at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History and the Rogers Historical Museum in order to understand the story of how this plot of land fits into the larger history of the county. That being said, I would definitely consider this the most significant incident of “learning-as-you-go” in my lifetime. Dr. Hancox has been my steadfast supporter, reminding me that slow progress and dead-ins are often the norm in historical research. I am extremely grateful to have received this Honors College Research Grant and to have cultivated a new skill-set throughout the process. And, now, for me the search continues!