Reading a map wrong, missing a turn or
getting lost are common mishaps while
traveling. For the most part, those kind
of things are expected, every once in a
while.
What is not
expected is the absence of a town when
the map says it is supposed to be there.
Bland,
Ark., located in Saline County, off of
Arkansas 298 and Steelbridge Road, is
the perfect example.
A quick
conversation with Cindy Pride, a
friendly employee at the Crow’s Station
and Grocery Store, located on the
outskirts of Bland, helped unravel the
mystery.
“Bland did
exist at one time. It had a school and a
church, but it’s not a community
anymore,” she said. “It disappeared over
the years. Bland Trail, which cut
through the town and came through
Arkansas 9, was connected with the town,
too. Today, it’s just an old dirt road.”
If one
travels down that road far enough, they
would find the remnants of the Old Union
Church, believed to have served Bland
residents.
Considering
how many rural communities there are in
Arkansas, finding a town without a sign
is fairly common. What’s not so common
is hearing local residents explain that
a town used to be here, but then
disappeared. Better yet, hearing local
residents claim they never even heard of
it.
Mark
Gillis, executive director for the
Benton Chamber of Commerce, has no
record of Bland. “I grew up around the
Saline area and I have no clue. It’s a
new one to me,” he said. “Most residents
who live nearby….are aware of a Bland
Trail. There are very few who can
remember a town by that name.”
Charles
Hinkson, a long time resident, is one of
the few, beside Pride, that has heard of
the community. “I moved here in 1957. It
wasn’t Bland at that time. I always
thought this was called the Congo area,”
he said. “I know that there was a church
and cemetery here.”
When asked
if he knew anything about Bland, Jim
Cain, another area resident, said
jokingly, “I guess they should have put
some more spices in it. Seriously
though, I do know some people named
Bland, but that’s about it. I don’t
believe they had any affiliation with
the town.”
Cain says
what happened to Bland is probably what
happened to another nearby town that
disappeared, too. It was called Cedar
Glades. “Bland might have been just a
little clump of houses and then everyone
moved,” he said.
It’s tough
to see why anyone would want to leave
this rustic, rural haven hidden among
the woods.
Bland is
perhaps one of the most attractive areas
on the map that no longer exists.
(This
article has been recently revised for
historical archiving and is an excerpt
from Road Trips; a weekly feature of
small towns in Arkansas, which was
written by Tracy Crain and published by
the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in 2000.)
