General Information
Pea Ridge National Military Park is located in northwest Arkansas near the Missouri border and protects the site of the Battle of Pea Ridge, fought March 7 and 8, 1862. The battle was a victory for the Union, and helped it gain control of the crucial border state of Missouri.
The 4,300-acre (17 km2) Pea Ridge National Military Park was created by an act of Congress in 1956 to preserve the battlefield of the 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge. It was dedicated as a national park during the nation's Civil War Centennial in 1963.
In 1956, the Arkansas congressional delegation proposed legislation to make Pea Ridge a national military park. This was a major breakthrough in American Civil War battlefield preservation. At that time, under the National Park Service classification system, only 1-acre (4,000 m2) should have been preserved, along with a monument. On July 20, 1956, Congress enacted legislation to accept a 5,000-acre (20 km2) donation from the state of Arkansas.
The park is acknowledged as one of the best preserved Civil War battlefields. The park features a visitor center and museum, a driving tour, the restored battlefields, hiking trails, a portion of the pre-war Old Telegraph/Wire Road, approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) of the Trail of Tears as followed by some members of the Cherokee Nation, and the restored Elkhorn Tavern, which was the epicenter of much of the battle.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pea Ridge National Military Park", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
