ROGERS — State officials can’t say when the revenue office in Rogers will reopen, but they apologize ahead of time for the longer wait at the other four revenue offices in Benton County.

The Rogers location at 2117 W. Walnut St. has been closed since storms damaged the roof May 26, said Scott Hardin. Hardin is spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, which oversees the state’s revenue offices.

The department does not have a planned date to reopen the office but is monitoring the progress of repairs daily, Hardin said. He added the state plans to open the office as soon as possible but wants to ensure customers have a great experience when it does.

Driver’s license and vehicle registrations are among the services handled at state revenue offices. The closure of the Rogers location has caused an increase in traffic at other locations in the region, Hardin said. He added the Bentonville office has stayed open two hours later on multiple days to be able to process the remaining customers in the building.

Jackie Scott, a Rogers resident, said when she visited the Bentonville office last month, the room was crowded and every window was in use with employees working nonstop.

Melody Kwok, communications director for Benton County, said the closure of the Rogers location has added “stress and strain” on the Bentonville office.

In addition to state revenue office operations, the Rogers building houses various county services. State and county services are on opposite sides of the divided building.

County services in the Rogers building reopened July 8. The Rogers site is the main location for the county assessor and county collector and has a satellite office for the county clerk.

Kwok said people often come in looking for state services in the county’s portion of the Rogers office. County employees provide the inquiring residents information on the open revenue offices in the region when that occurs, she said.

The county’s landlord installed a temporary roof, replaced air conditioning units and broken exterior glass and made other repairs needed after the storm, Kwok said. Air quality in the office was found to be normal according to an air quality test the county requested, she said.

A permanent roof is being installed and will take several weeks to complete, Kwok said.

There are 134 revenue offices in Arkansas, Hardin said. According to Benton County’s Facebook page, the other Benton County revenue office locations are in Bentonville, Gravette, Siloam Springs and Decatur.

Rogers Revenue Office employees have been reassigned to Bentonville until Rogers opens to help decrease wait times, Hardin said. He said the Bentonville location is ranked among the busiest in Arkansas, and the state will reassign employees of other offices in the region during the days when wait times increase.

“I think the loss of the Rogers office has put a strain on surrounding offices,” said Elaine Pasley, a Bella Vista resident.

She said she has always used the Gravette office because it usually has a shorter wait time. She said she went a couple of weeks ago, and the office had wait times of more than two hours.

Morgan Harris, a Pea Ridge resident, said he chose to go to the Gravette office after he saw the line at the Bentonville office “snaked through” the entire building. He said he still waited two hours at Gravette to be helped.

A wide variety of revenue office services are available online, Hardin said. Examples include ordering a replacement license, registering a vehicle, ordering a personalized license plate, checking the status of a title and renewing car tags.

The Finance and Administration Department will provide updates regarding the Rogers office on its social media channels as they are available, Hardin said.

More News

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Alternate revenue office locations

Bentonville 

Address: 2401 S.W. D St., Suite 3

Phone: 479-273-2724

Gravette 

Address: 901 First Ave. S.W., Suite C

Phone: 479-787-5912

Siloam Springs 

Address: 707 S. Lincoln, Suite A

Phone: 479-524-3182

Decatur 

Address: Municipal Hall, 310 Maple St.

Phone: 479-752-3912

Source: Benton County

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Arkansas is known as “the Natural State” but that hasn’t always been the case.

In the state’s earlier days, Arkansas had unofficial nicknames but did not get an official one until the 20th century.

Here were some of the early unofficial nicknames:

• The “Bear State”: The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said pre-settlement estimates showed there were more than 50,000 bears in the state. Most of the bears were Louisiana black bears, one of 16 species native to the United States. By the 1930s, the bears in the state were almost hunted out completely.
• The “Toothpick State”: Early Arkansans kept large sheath or belt knives on their person. Some were double-edged knives called “dirks”. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas said in 1837 one state representative dispatched of another with a knife “[cementing]the new state’s renown as a violent place.
• “Rackensack”: No one knows exactly where this nickname came from but CALS said by the end of the 1840s, it was used as an exaggerated definition for the rural and hilly western parts of Arkansas.

The “Wonder State”

In 1923, Arkansas officially got a nickname when the legislative assembly recognized the Arkansas Advancement Association’s activities. The AAA was a group of businessmen looking to attract economic investment to the state and improve its image.

Former governor Charles H. Brough was an advocate for AAA and traveled around the south earlier in the decade praising the natural resources the state had to offer.

A resolution from January 1923 said, “It is an admitted fact that the State of Arkansas excels all others in natural resources, its store of mineral wealth being practically inexhaustible, its vast forests supplying pine and hardwoods in quantities sufficient to place the state in the forefront, and its agricultural and horticultural prowess recognized not only in the United States; but in foreign countries.”

The resolution claimed the “Bear State” nickname was a misnomer and led to a false impression while the “Wonder State” is accurate and deserves special recognition.

“Though official, the nickname did little to change popular perceptions of Arkansas as an underdeveloped, even backward, state,” the Encyclopedia of Arkansas said.

“Land of Opportunity”

Since the nickname did little to improve the state’s image, a second group of businessmen called the “Committee of 100” looked to come up with a new nickname.

Looking to improve economic development in Arkansas, the group decided on the “Land of Opportunity”.

Although not official at the time, the nickname was added to license plates in the 1940s and was printed on various promotional materials, according to CALS.

In 1953, the Arkansas General Assembly passed a resolution by dropping the “Wonder State” and replacing it with the “Land of Opportunity.”

The “Natural State”

In the back half of the 20th century, tourism in the state started to grow. In the 1980s, the Arkansas parks system adopted the “Natural State” nickname to help highlight the state’s natural landscape, the Encyclopedia of Arkansas said.

State Representative Dennis Young introduced a legislation in 1995 wanting to change the nickname to the “Natural State” as it proved to be more popular than the previous one.

Young cited the “unsurpassed scenery, clear lakes, free-flowing streams, magnificent rivers, meandering bayous, delta bottomlands, forested mountains and abundant fish and wildlife” Arkansas has to offer.

His bill became Act 1352 later that year and the nickname has stuck ever since.