Elm Springs in the Civil War

The spring came first. Elms and springs strong enough to turn a mill gave the town its name. John Ingram built the spring-powered mill in 1844, and William Barrington opened the first store and proposed the name. A blacksmith shop followed in 1852, the town was a stagecoach stop by 1854, and Jesse and Sarah McAllister ran boys' and girls' academies from 1849 until an epidemic closed them. The mill was the center of the local economy when federal forces destroyed it. Elm Springs incorporated in 1917, and the town now straddles the Washington and Benton county line.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Walmart Museum — 12 mi
  Sam Walton's 1950 variety store on the Bentonville square, now a free museum with his 1979 pickup, a recreated office, the 1945 Newport store door and a 1950s-style soda counter.
• Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art — 12 mi
  A 2011 Moshe Safdie building on 120 acres of Ozark forest in Bentonville, with free admission, six trails, two ponds, a spring, an arboretum and a relocated Frank Lloyd Wright house.
• Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park — 16 mi
  The December 7, 1862 battlefield where about 2,700 fell and Hindman withdrew in the night, with the Borden orchard, Hindman Hall's free museum, and walking and driving tours.
• Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area — 18 mi
  Arkansas's largest state park, about 12,000 acres on Beaver Lake, with the Van Winkle mill site, a graveyard of enslaved people, 54 miles of trail and regulated hunting.

More markers nearby

• Wartime Gristmill Destruction — 5.7 mi
• Holcomb's Spring in the Civil War — 6.0 mi
• Regular Baptist Church of Shiloh — 6.0 mi
• Rev. James Ingram — 7.4 mi