The Old Wire Road and the Trail of Tears in Northwest Arkansas

Image from the National Park Service's page.

A road of many names

The Old Wire Road began as a buffalo trace and a hunting route used by the Osage and by fur traders. In 1835 the county court ordered it cleared to a width of 20 feet, and it became the Missouri Road, a postal route and a main link between northwest Arkansas and Indian Territory. From 1837 to 1839 it was called the Springfield to Fayetteville Road. When telegraph lines were strung along it in 1860 it became Telegraph Road, and eventually the Old Wire Road — the Wire Road, as it is known in Missouri.

Its route has changed very little since 1838–1839, when it carried 12 Cherokee detachments on the final stretch of their forced journey to Indian Territory. The road does not stop at the state line: it runs north and south beyond northwest Arkansas, linking places as far apart as St. Louis, Missouri, and Fort Smith, Arkansas.

The itinerary

The National Park Service's Old Wire Road itinerary covers a short section of the Trail of Tears — one route, in one state, in two counties — out of the five routes by land and water that crossed nine states. Each stop tells one part of the Cherokee experience as the detachments neared the end of the trail and entered Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. The stops include historic segments of the road, a tavern, a valley with a spring and a crossroads, farmsteads and a modern museum. Road names change from stop to stop, but all of them are the Old Wire Road.

In places the road is modern, since people still travel it today; in others it feels ancient and haunting. The National Park Service invites visitors to think at each stop about the resources and human needs involved in moving groups of about a thousand people along this path, and to piece the stops together into a day in the life of someone walking the Trail of Tears. No one today can know the depth of what the Cherokee felt and endured, but visitors can follow their footsteps and honor the perseverance of a people driven from their homelands who rebuilt their nation in a new land. One stop, Pea Ridge National Military Park, is where William Reddick's farm served as a supply station for the detachments.

More is on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail site.

Sources

• National Park Service, Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: "Trail of Tears: Northwest Arkansas Itinerary."