Take a short but meaningful drive through central Saline County as we follow Arkansas Highway 229 from Benton southward into Haskell. Though only a couple of miles in length, this stretch carries with it the echoes of an older highway era, when U.S. 67 threaded through here as the region’s lifeline before the coming of Interstate 30. What remains today is a modest corridor that still serves local travelers, with subtle hints of its former role hidden in the landscape.
We begin our journey on the north side of Benton, just off the I-30 frontage road where AR-229 sets out along the alignment of the old U.S. highway. The road heads first to the northwest, easing us away from Benton’s growing suburban edges. Along this stretch, the roadway feels transitional—lined in places by clusters of trees, then opening up to reveal stretches of roadside businesses and houses that sprang up when this was still the main road south. The pavement carries a steady rhythm of local traffic, reminding us how these older alignments continue to serve the daily flow of the community.
Before long, the highway bends gently southward and sets its course for Haskell. Here the route straightens and the scenery begins to feel more like small-town Arkansas, with tree-lined rights-of-way mixing with open fields and the occasional sign of light industry. Haskell itself has grown in recent decades, fueled in part by its proximity to the interstate, and AR-229 plays an understated but vital role in keeping it connected. Passing into town, the highway delivers us to the edge of the I-30 interchange, where modern traffic merges with the quiet heritage of the old road. For those who know what to look for, the junction represents a fascinating overlap—an interstate gateway built alongside a short remnant of what was once one of Arkansas’s busiest federal corridors.
Our drive may be brief, but it reminds us how even the smallest stretches of pavement carry a story. Arkansas Highway 229 is not just a local connector between Benton and Haskell; it is also a fragment of a larger history, when the nation’s highways were steadily evolving from two-lane corridors into the high-speed interstates we take for granted today. In following its path, we catch a glimpse of that transition, carried forward in a simple two-mile drive that still matters to the people who live and travel here.
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