Peering over the rooftop’s edge, I’d barely taken in the city view before the silhouettes of two giant glimmering fish on a concrete wall stole my gaze. Watching the sunlight bounce off their silvery scales, clearly designed to waft with the breeze, felt strangely hypnotic. It was an unusually warm Sunday morning in early October, and I was four floors up on top of a shiny glass building called the Ledger, which I’d cycled up to, along wide ramps that wrapped around it. I was counting art installations and tower cranes. And so far, I’d spotted six of each.
The Ledger is one of the latest developments in Bentonville, an art-filled city, also known as a mountain biking centre, located on the fringes of the Ozarks in northwest Arkansas, an unsung US state sandwiched between Tennessee, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma. The fish, as I later discovered, were two smallmouth bass – an art installation by Stefan Sagmeister called Lakes and Rivers in a nod to Arkansas’ abundance of wildlife. It forms part of the NW Oz Art trail of “museum quality art in surprising places” scattered around the northwest of the state. And the cranes? I’d read Bentonville was often dubbed America’s fastest growing city and at one point home to more per capita than anywhere else in the country and wanted to see for myself.
The boom is attributed to superstore chain, Walmart, founded in 1962 by Sam Walton here in Bentonville, where the billion-dollar-company headquarters are still located, and the Walton family continues to invest. This includes the Walmart Home Office, a 140-hectare campus in the spotlight and attracting newcomers, the vast Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Razorback Regional Greenway, 36 miles of bike trails I was spending the day exploring the city on by e-bike. They connect Bentonville with funky college town Fayetteville, home to the Razorback college football team – go hogs!
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Not, however, before a trip to the offbeat Walmart Museum Heritage Lab downstairs in The Ledger, the Walmart Museum’s temporary location while it undergoes a major renovation. It tells the history of the superstore, including fun exhibits such as its customers’ most ridiculous reasons for returning items – and Walmart’s latest innovation: drone delivery. The novel way to deliver shopping was tested here in Bentonville and now operates in 36 stores across seven US states. I wondered if I’d spot one during my trip.
Back on two wheels, every other cyclist I passed was geared up on a mountain bike, ready for a day on the trails. No sooner was I back in my e-bike saddle, I’d stopped once again to admire a shiny Fleetwood Cadillac limo outside the luxury 21c Museum Hotel. Covered in nickels, dimes and pennies, it was built in 1962 when the first Walton five and dime opened, inspiring its design. Back on the bike, I rode towards a giant eroded copper paper aeroplane; another NW Oz Art trail stop called Launch Intention by Griffin Loop.
With so many stunning public artworks to admire in close range, it took me almost an hour to travel just 3.5 miles to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the region’s crown jewel amid a major expansion slated for completion in 2026. It was opened in 2011 by Sam Walton’s daughter, Alice, whose personal collection formed the foundations of the museum. Today, it presents a snapshot of American art through the ages including a captivating section on how the frontier shaped the national identity, featuring evocative landscape scenes.
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As much as I could have spent an entire day browsing the vast collection, lunch called another short cycle away just off the Greenway near The Momentary, a giant contemporary arts space set in a former cheese factory. Nearby, brightly coloured Mexican restaurant Yeyo’s is popular with the working lunch crowd – many of whom were sporting Walmart lanyards. Here I tucked into homemade tortilla chips and guacamole, outside in a shady seat, opposite a car park clad in a psychedelic mural. No ordinary public building in Bentonville, it seems, remains uncovered.
Biking around the pretty Coler Mountain Bike Preserve after lunch, I stumbled on a building resembling a giant open-sided concrete bunker, with a couple of inviting, if incongruous, swing seats. It was home to local coffee shop, Airship, where I made a pitstop before biking it back to town. I didn’t want to be late for dinner at Junto Sushi, an upscale small-plates restaurant and hotspot in the new funky Motto by Hilton hotel. It’s worth a visit for a Mandalorian – a cocktail of tequila, mandarin, lime and agave – and the toban yaki lobster sizzle, alone.
“They call it Pleasantville here,” Danny Collins, founder of outdoor adventure company 37 North Expeditions, explained to me of the area, the next day on a hike to Hawksbill Crag, a rock overhang in the Ozark National Forest with spectacular views. “This is one of the most beautiful parts of the state in my opinion,” he added. “More stunning and peaceful even than some of the trails in the bigger and better-known Ozark National Park.”
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Born and raised in the Ozark vicinity, Danny had recently moved back after a few years in New York and South America, to reconnect with nature and his roots. “Growing up here, I took the natural beauty on my doorstop for granted,” he told me, which is why he’s made it his mission to show locals and visitors alike what’s in their backyard, which he was kindly introducing me to. Shuffling nervously to the edge of the rock, I looked out over the undulating valley carpeted in trees in golden Fall-season glory. It was mind-blowing. And so close to the city.
At the nearby Buffalo Outdoor Centre, which organises rafting and biking in the Buffalo River Valley, we grabbed sandwiches to eat at Steel Creek. This shady spot boasts a dramatic storybook setting in the shadow of Roark Bluff, which is a dramatic sight at over 200ft high. “This is a quintessential Ozark activity,” said Danny. Families were spread out on picnic blankets, as children splashed into the river from a rope swing. Hard as it was peeling ourselves away from this bucolic scene plucked from a Tom Sawyer tale, we had one more destination to hit: the Lost Valley home to Eden Falls, usually gushing but empty on our visit, where the sound of woodpeckers calling echoed.
Back in Bentonville at dusk, the town square was alive with music and market stalls for First Friday, a monthly community event with a friendly family vibe, where people danced, shopped for gifts and ate street food. Early for dinner at The Preacher’s Son, an upmarket restaurant in a converted church, I drank a beer at the Bentonville Dive opposite. From my seat on the busy terrace where a band was setting up, I looked up and there it was. My first sighting of a Walmart drone floating through the sky on the way to deliver shopping. And just like that, my Bentonville experience was complete.
How to get there
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic offer return flights from London to Northwest Arkansas National Airport with a connection in a US hub from around £700.
Ellie arranged this trip with the support of Visit Bentonville, Arkansas Travel and Travel South.
