If you believe population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, nowhere in Arkansas is growing more quickly from a percentage standpoint than Tontitown. A town that had 4,301 residents in the 2020 census grew to 7,364 residents by the end of 2023, the bureau estimates.

As one heads west out of Springdale on U.S. 412, it's evident that there's no end in sight to such growth. Construction projects are visible on both sides of the highway.

Traffic is bumper to bumper at almost any hour of the day. I've written about Tontitown in recent columns due to the release of Larry Foley's latest documentary, "Cries from the Cotton Field." It's the story of Italian immigrants who were led from the Sunnyside Plantation in southeast Arkansas to this part of the Ozarks in 1898 by a Catholic priest named Pietro Bandini.

I feared the growth that has swallowed old Tontitown would obscure this place's fascinating history, but Foley won't let that happen. Neither will those who run the Tontitown Historical Museum, which opened in 1986 in the former Bastianelli family home, which was built in 1910.

"Bastianelli family members were original settlers of Tontitown in 1898," writes historian Becky Howard. "Three sisters were active in Tontitown life. Rose Bastianelli was a teacher, Zelinda Bastianelli was postmistress, and Mary Bastianelli was a housekeeper and personal secretary for both Father Pietro Bandini and his nephew, Father........

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