ROGERS -- The Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce took a journey back in time to look at the community's history and explored the vision for the next 100 years during Tuesday's Centennial Celebration of Business and Community.
The event took place at the Rogers Convention Center and featured storytelling, award presentations and a panel of young leaders discussing the community's future. It concluded with an announcement that the chamber has continued to be one of 136 in the country with a five-star rating from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Local Rotary Club leaders established the Rogers Chamber of Commerce in 1922, according to Angie Tucker-Ridley, outgoing chamber board chair and owner of Tucker's Furniture and Appliance.
"The chamber's story is one of working quietly behind the scenes to get things done," said Raymond Burns, president and CEO. "For 100 years, we've built a legacy of representing business unapologetically, convening community leaders to do great things and being catalysts to influence positive change and responsible growth."
From the beginning, the chamber worked to remain relevant and necessary by cultivating and activating local business and community leaders from all backgrounds, Burns said. The leaders worked to make Rogers and Lowell the welcoming and prosperous community it is today, he said.
John Wayne Ford brought the voice of Rogers founder Benjamin Franklin Sikes to life as he told the story of the town's early years. Sikes came to Northwest Arkansas from Tennessee in 1853 with his father and brother. He owned the 160 acres that would become the original Rogers town site, donating the right of way to the railroad and laying out the original town site.
The railroad came to Rogers in 1881, and by 1887 the city had dozens of businesses, he said.
Rogers' current quality of life is the result of years of hard work addressing the city's infrastructure needs -- from water, recreation, transportation and education, to health care and housing, said Bill Watkins, attorney and former chamber board chair, as he shared the history of the town during the 20th century.
The region's economy was based on agriculture from the 1930s to the 1950s, and Rogers' population stayed at a steady 3,500 people during those years, said Pat Harris, CEO of Coldwell Banker Harris McHaney & Faucette, and former chamber board chair.
In 1953, local leaders formed the Industrial Foundation of Rogers, and in 1958 they announced Daisy BB Guns was relocating to the city, Harris said.
"Daisy put us on the map," Harris said. "It made us a viable alternative for other companies and industries."
Other companies such as Glad Manufacturing, Bekaert Corp. and Tyson Foods also became cornerstones of commerce in the city, he said.
Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in downtown Rogers in July 1962, changing retail forever, John Furner, Walmart president and CEO, said in a video message.
Furner said his family moved to Rogers in 1983 when he was a child, at a time when Pinnacle Hills did not exist and downtown was in decline. He said he is excited to see how the area has come to life. He thanked the chamber for building a safe and welcoming community.
Rogers has experienced tremendous growth in the last decade as it expanded westward into Pinnacle Hills to create the uptown district, said Tom Allen, of Cushman & Wakefield|Sage Partners.
"The area has become arguably one of the hottest areas for commercial and real estate development in Arkansas with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of office, retail, restaurant, multifamily and entertainment projects completed or in various stages of development," Allen said.
Lowell started as a small settlement of about 30 homesteaders known as Robinson's Cross Roads, where the Butterfield Stagecoach stopped along what was later called Old Wire Road, according to Nick Hobbs, past chamber board chair and chief operating officer and president of contract services for J.B. Hunt Transport.
Lowell founded its own chamber of commerce in 1976 but decided to merge with the Rogers chamber in 2000, Hobbs said.
Looking forward
"To look to the future, we have to learn the lessons from the past," said Erin Keifer, incoming chamber board chair and CEO of Assembled Products Corp. "Today, we took a journey back in time to remember where we came from and how far we've come."
When the chamber was founded in 1922, it would have been difficult to convince people the community would have helped launch the largest company in the world, she said. Telephones, radios and computers would have seemed like fantasy, she said.
"To get here today, it took a community willing to incubate, support and steward the visionaries and we must do more of this in the next 100 years," Keifer said. "We must be the vehicle that allows visionaries to thrive."
Keifer interviewed a panel of young leaders about their vision for the future, including April Legere, Rogers City Council member; Alex English, public relations and marketing specialist for the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport; and Josh Vasquez, vice president and community outreach officer at Encore Bank.
The chamber is guided by the Vision 100 Community Action Plan, said Martha Londagin, business consultant at Startup Junkie Foundation and a member of the chamber's small business council. The plan was developed by discovering the kind of services residents want through an online survey, followed by a series of community tables and serves as a road map to 2035, she said.
Through the process, the chamber found the community envisions itself reaching a population of 100,000 people, she said. Rogers has nearly 70,000 people and Lowell has nearly 10,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Over the past five years, the chamber has gone through an evolution with its Chamber 3.0 initiative, said Eric Pianalto, president of Mercy Hospital Northwest and former chamber board chair.
"As the keeper of the community vision and voice of business, the chamber will lead the way to sustain our prosperity for another hundred years," Pianalto said.
Chamber awards
• Spirit Award — Rotary Club of Rogers
• Dick Trammel Good Neighbor Award — Congressman Steve Womack
• Elbert S. Graham/Elza Tucker Award — Melanie Houston
• Small business of the year — Gro Catering
Source: Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The story was updated to correct Tom Allen's name.