Springfield to Fayetteville Road-Elkhorn Tavern Segment is a section of historic 19th-century roadway in Pea Ridge National Military Park in northwestern Arkansas . It is a dirt road , about long and wide , that was built in 1835 . The first major road through northwestern Arkansas , it connected Fayetteville , Arkansas with Springfield , Missouri . The road was part of the major northern route of the Trail of Tears , the forcible remove in the late 1830s of Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River to what is now Oklahoma . The road was also actively used by both Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War , and was the major route of advance by Confederate forces leading to the Battle of Pea Ridge , whose battlefield is preserved by the park
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Springfield to Fayetteville Road-Elkhorn Tavern Segment