"[A]bove all, the courthouse: the center, the focus, the hub; sitting looming in the center of the county's circumference ... symbolic and ponderable, tall as cloud, solid as rock, dominating all: protector of the weak, judiciate and curb of the passions and lusts, repository and guardian of the aspirations and the hopes ..."
-- William Faulkner, "Requiem for a Nun"
Wait, did Faulkner say sitting in the center of the county or three miles out toward Centerton?
Benton County officials are weighing proposals to build a new judicial complex and move the county courthouse and related services from downtown Bentonville to Arkansas 102.
For a full disclaimer, yes, I'm an attorney with an office in downtown Bentonville, so it seems self-serving to say I want the courthouse to stay within walking distance of my practice.
All right, I'll admit it's self-serving, but not for the reasons you might think.
I'm primarily a transactions attorney rather than a litigator. I mainly handle wills and trusts, real estate, business formation, compliance, contracts, copyright/trademark and commercial transactions. Oh, I do a divorce now and then and have the occasional probate issue arise, but despite my mama's notion otherwise, I am not Perry Mason and don't desire to be. While it's convenient to simply walk over to file things, I'm more often in the boardroom than the courtroom, so my practice doesn't live or die by its proximity to the courthouse.
My reasons have little to do with the law.
When I came to Northwest Arkansas nearly 20 years ago for law school, I didn't move to Fayetteville. No, that would've been a prudent decision that made far too much sense. Instead, I moved to Bentonville and commuted daily to the University of Arkansas for three years.
My mama came with me to look for housing. I couldn't afford much. I wasn't a party girl, so the college town atmosphere wasn't really my thing. We saw a classified ad for a little apartment in downtown Bentonville and the rest, they say, is history.
I fell in love. Not with the apartment; lands no, it was a hole in the wall. I fell in love with the town, its people, the square. I felt at home.
I'd visit with J. Dickson Black on the square sometimes and he'd tell me about the history of the courthouse, the one destroyed during the Civil War, the one that replaced it in 1874, and our current one built in 1928. All were built in downtown Bentonville, of course.
I say "of course" because a courthouse is one of the most recognizable symbols of a downtown square in many a town in every state across the nation. It's the seat of government and anchor to the district, where banks, city halls, barber shops and coffee shops all come together.
Where else would you stick that building in your Dickens' Christmas village?
It has been proven time and again that when you take basic government services out of the downtown area, you take a steady flow of people out of that area and the town as a whole -- not just the downtown -- suffers, which means the county suffers indirectly as well.
And I sure don't want to see that happen.
Courthouses are more than brick and mortar. I hope we don't lose sight of that in the name of progress.
Lisa Kelley is a writer, master gardener, animal lover and all-around good ol' Southern gal who also happens to practice law and mediate cases in downtown Bentonville. Email her at [email protected].
NAN Our Town on 04/09/2015