Take a short but meaningful ride through central Arkansas as we follow Military Road from Glen Rose to Rockport. This seven-mile stretch parallels the busy Interstate 30, but offers a slower, more personal view of the region—one that echoes the days when older roadways served as vital connectors before the interstate era reshaped travel.
Our journey begins in the community of Glen Rose at the intersection with Fairplay Road. Immediately, we find ourselves on a road with layers of history, once part of the original corridor that carried travelers across Hot Spring and Saline Counties. The character here is semi-rural, with patches of hardwood forest giving way to scattered houses and fields. It’s a drive where the rhythm of daily life unfolds along the shoulders—residents tending gardens, mailboxes lining the roadside, and small driveways disappearing into shaded groves. Even as I-30 hums just out of sight to the south, this route feels like a world apart, calm and unhurried.
Heading westward, the road crosses into Hot Spring County. The terrain remains a mix of wooded stretches and open clearings, but with subtle reminders of the interstate nearby. At times, gaps in the trees provide quick glimpses of trucks and cars rushing past, reinforcing the contrast between old and new travel corridors. For us, the two-lane blacktop serves as a quieter alternative, its modest traffic and gentle alignment giving space to notice details: the lay of the land, the sound of cicadas in the summer, and the sense of traveling along a road that has endured even as larger highways eclipsed it.
As we approach Rockport, the most striking moment arrives when the road carries us directly over Interstate 30. Here the juxtaposition is clear—above us, the steady local lane; below, the roaring artery of cross-country travel. From this vantage, we are reminded of the layers of infrastructure that mark progress through time, each new roadway overlaying the paths of the past. After the overpass, Military Road bends westward into Rockport itself, a community shaped by its proximity to both the old and the new. The drive concludes at the junction with U.S. Route 270, a highway that provides direct access to Malvern to the west and Pine Bluff to the east.
While short in distance, the route from Glen Rose to Rockport highlights a recurring theme across Arkansas and beyond: how older roads, once lifelines of travel, now run parallel to interstates as quieter companions. They carry with them echoes of earlier journeys, the stories of small towns, and the spirit of roads less traveled. On Military Road, we glimpse not just a way from one place to another, but a reminder that every mile has its own place in the fabric of America’s highways.
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