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Bentonville, Arkansas: Notable and Quotable

By August 17, 2018August 7th, 2020No Comments

Outside Magazine, one of the preeminent adventure publications, ran another feature on Bentonville entitled, “How Outdoor Rec Transformed These Towns”! The previous Outside article, “The Walmart Heirs Putting Arkansas on the Fat-Tire Map”, detailed how Tom and Steuart’s fat-tire investments have earned Bentonville a surprising amount of attention from the mountain-biking industry.

The national exposure from major publications for our small Ozark mountain town continues to happen with more and more frequency.

Town & Country, the oldest continually published general interest magazine in the United States, jumped into the mix with a piece entitled “7 Things to Do in Bentonville, Arkansas”.

The internationally respected, Architectural Digest, “aimed at an affluent and style-conscious readership”, made the region blush and grab the dictionary simultaneously with its feature entitled “Why Aesthetes Should Consider a Trip to Bentonville, Arkansas, and the Ozarks”. By the way, an aesthete is a person who has or affects to have a special appreciation of art and beauty. And no, we are not embarrassed to admit that we had to look that up. AD also gave the nod to Bentonville in the “The 30 Most Beautiful Main Streets Across America”.

Circling back to mountain biking, “Playgrounds: Is Bentonville, Arkansas the next great MTB town?” by Teton Gravity Researchwas an awesome read, but maybe not as awesome as the Jeffrey Brown PBS Newshour feature, “Crystal Bridges offers a world of art in Arkansas’ backyard”.  Check out some of our favorite quotes from these features below.

*Cover photo courtesy of Zac Milner on Instagram (@zac_milner)

“Once derided as an avoidable backwater, Northwest Arkansas is now rife with travel-worthy art and design, first-rate dining, and sublime natural beauty”

Architectural Digest Feature

“I would compare the density of trails here to what you might find in a place like Park City, Utah”

Brendan QuirkOutside Magazine Feature

“You can ride 360 days a year here. If you are deeply in love with mountain biking, that’s a really big deal.”

Brendan QuirkOutside Magazine Feature

“And while Bentonville has delivered as a cultural hub in middle America, it’s also managed to stay humble—marrying a big-city feel with down-home roots.”

Architectural Digest Feature

“The arts and culture industry in the region generated $131.2 million in economic activity.”

Architectural Digest Feature

“Many professionals are drawn here because of the availability of high-paying jobs, low cost of living, and access to world-class cultural and culinary options.”

Nelson PeacockAd Feature

“One can’t mention Bentonville without gushing about Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art—it’s what the Louvre is to Paris or the Met is to New York City.”

Architectural Digest Feature

“Bentonville is expanding beyond adventure attractions. There are breweries, farm-to-table bistros, a boutique hotel, and a world-class American-art museum right off the town square.”

Outside Magazine Feature

“We talk about Bentonville as a ski town for bikes.”

Tom WaltonOutside Feature

“Trails, museums, food, more trails, and did I mention trails? All jokes aside, this small corner of America may hold the key to mountain biking’s future.”

Teton Gravity Feature

“But what sets apart Bentonville from the rest of them? In a nutshell, the sheer quality and diversity of the trails.”

Teton Gravity Feature

“Tom and Steuart Walton are both cycling nuts, and they’re trying to do for mountain biking what the family business did for retailing: change everything.”

Outside Feature

“Bentonville has delivered as a cultural hub in middle America.”

Architectural Digest Feature

“Cycling generates $51 million annually for area businesses, including $27 million from out-of-state visitors.”

Outside Feature

“What does an art museum have to do with mountain biking, you may ask? Well, when the entire area surrounding the beautifully landscaped museum is a maze of singletrack, the connection becomes pretty obvious.”

Teton Gravity Feature

“Known as one of the best mountain-biking areas in the country (International Mountain Biking Association ranked Bentonville a Silver-Level Ride Center), the region has more than 140 miles of hard and soft trails for every level from beginner to expert.”

Town & Country Feature

“This newfound mountain bike mecca, tucked away in the Ozark Mountains in Northwest Arkansas, or NWA as the locals call it (take that as you will), maybe the next destination American mountain bike town.”

Teton Gravity Feature

“You’ll find stylish boutiques, a handful of tiny hotels, and a museum that anchors the corridor; combine that with a charming drawl and plenty of Southern cooking—often punctuated with a sophisticated flair—and you have the new Bentonville, Arkansas.”

Architectural Digest Feature

“We've transformed from a small business focused town that people only visited to see Walmart into a cool, edgy outdoor sports destination, because of the enormous investments in our trails”

Jeff CharlstonTeton Gravity Feature

“The town's small business and outdoor interests are forming a new-age matrimony, with the results of that marriage seen peppered throughout Bentonville's downtown.”

Jeff CharlstonTeton Gravity Feature

“With Crystal Bridges and big investments from a younger generation of Waltons, the town has taken on a new look practically overnight. Its downtown is now filled with street art, trendy restaurants, and bike shops that feed a burgeoning mountain biking scene.”

PBS Newshour Feature

“If a town like Bentonville can reinvent itself in a matter of a decade into a place that embraces mountain biking the way it does, it can and will serve as example for other communities across the country.”

Teton Gravity Feature

“When you think of world-class art collections, you may think Paris, New York, but maybe not Bentonville, Arkansas. But the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has a mission that's helping to reshape the entire region.”

PBS Newshour Feature

“Northwest Arkansas might not be at the top of your travel bucket list, but it should be.”

Town & Country Feature