If U of A were Located in Southwest Arkansas

I've always kinda wondered why it wasn't put in Hot Springs.

Maybe I'm biased being born there and it's history as being a destination and having that land grant school location of not being in the big city, or the capital but a little isolated and located between population centers.

I guess the Fayetteville people had a better bid or donated more land and had more support.

The first college in Arkansas is just miles down the road from me, I'm guessing there was a large contingent of locals that really wanted the college in Fayetteville. The idea of the time was that kids "went away for college" and most of the state land grant schools are located in what was isolation at the time.

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The best bid got the school.Who knew it would grow to what it is today.After all, it was about education...

It wound up in the best place...

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would be hard to predict in 1880 or whenever that the largest corp in the world would be down the street

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ust think about say, if the University were located in the Texarkana area.

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Uh no.

It would be Mississippi State.

This notion is retarded. We don't recruit Texas because we don't hire coaches with Texas backgrounds.

We don't recruit that well because we never hire ace recruiters.

Miss State has to compete with Bama, the best college program ever, 80 miles away and another major college IN state in Ole Miss, which is viewed as more prestigious and has more fans.

Arkansas would not have any of those factors working against it in Texarkana. They'd still be the only major program in the state and there would not be another big time program within close range.

It would be by far the closest football power type school for East Texas, South Arkansas and North LA... 2 of those are MAJOR talent producing areas.

Didn't Bobby get to 16th one time? If you could get within the top 15 every year Arkansas would be very very close to winning nat'l titles.

Fayetteville was destined to have a state university at some point. Prior to the Civil War, Fayetteville was home to "Arkansas College" which was burned by troops in 1862. Cane Hill College was located just up the road, and Fayetteville was also home to a women's seminary (which is probably part of the reason that, unlike many southern Land Grant schools, Arkansas was always co-ed). Fayetteville had a relatively long history as a "college town" prior to placing the bid for the campus of Arkansas Industrial University.

Batesville and a few other cities were in the running for the Land Grant school.

What a strange world it would be if the University of Arkansas was located in Hillcrest in Little Rock and Arkansas State University was atop the old McIlroy hilltop farm in Fayetteville.

It could have easily turned out that way. It could still happen, if either Pigfeet or WonderWartHog invent a time machine...

Also, if the University had been located in Hot Springs or Little Rock, with easier travel to the southeast, it's likely we never would have been in the SWC to begin with. It was the close connection to Oklahoma, and easier, flatter travel west and south that direction that initially tied us to Texas, via Oklahoma and Oklahoma State (both original members of the SWC).

The campus would be just as beautiful, if no moreso, had it been placed at the foot of Mount Magazine, or somewhere around Mena. Imagine if campus had been put atop Rich Mountain or one of the ridges from Mansfield to Mena... That would be an outstanding natural setting.

Imagine Old Main's towers up here...then imagine the hike to and from the bar district below...

At the time the carpetbaggers shipped the University of Arkansas to Fayetteville, the the place was as backwards and desolate as they could find in Arkansas.

It made no geographic sense at that time, and still doesn't today. Hell, it's hardly IN Arkansas.

But it is what it is.

Maybe we'd have a kicker?

All these immigrants, carpet baggers and limp-wrist soccer players and we can't get a chip shot sure K from Berryville or Green Forest much less Rogers or Springdale.