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Tontitown was recently named the fastest-growing town in Arkansas and its census, homebuilding, and commercial real estate numbers rival many cities nationwide. As the landmark for Highway 412, if the evening commute doesn’t convince you, check with any economic developer about the best place to put a casual dining spot in Northwest Arkansas.
For many years, Tontitown was known mainly as a place with a beautiful historic chapel where you could stop for great pizza and spaghetti made by someone’s faithful Nona.
Each August, many revel in the summer’s planning at the Tontitown Grape Festival with traditional experiences like grape stomping, the crowning of a new queen, and the famed spaghetti dinner where a piece of bone and fried chicken accompanies a handmade pasta plate. The local Catholic church hosts this annual event to mark its heritage, celebrate its culture, and raise money for programming throughout the year.
But who are these people, and why is this event still drawing many to Tonititown?
It starts in Chicot County
Like many American immigrant stories, an opportunity for a better life drew the interest of a northern Italian village. Austin Corbin, owner of Sunnyside Plantation in Lake Village, the heart of Chicot County, was a New York banker and lawyer but kept the plantation when its owner defaulted on a loan payment. In his plans, Corbin was constructing a railroad with a rail line through the south.
For a time, freed blacks and southeast Arkansas prisoners were used in chain gangs to complete the fields of the cash crop. However, congenial conversations with his friend, the Italian ambassador, opened Corbin’s eyes to an opportunity to recruit Italians to come to America. Together, they crafted a contract that would be hard to refuse for the Italians tired of taxation, fighting in the Italian Army, living on top of each other and having nowhere to go.
Corbin worked with the Ambassador and Mayor of Rome to recruit Italian families. The deal was illegal in many forms, but they initially recruited 98 families arriving at the New Orleans port in Nov. 1895.
A land of opportunity and promises, so they say
Many Italians saw themselves as pioneers, moving to America for new opportunities and plots of land and creating a space for more to join them later.
But everything quickly changed when they arrived. The first group landed in New Orleans instead of Ellis Island, and no railroad could transport them to Lake Village. At the time, New Orleans was anti-Italian, and many feared for their safety.
Once they finally arrived in Lake Village, they were very confused by the weather and their surroundings. In their hometown, they drank mineral water from the local springs built from mountain runoff. They were used to mild temperatures and had no idea what a mosquito was. Many became ill from water-borne and mosquito-spread diseases.
The Italian fathers felt like they had moved their families to America to die, and many began writing back home, sharing their experiences and the realities of South Arkansas.
Bandini becomes a champion
Meanwhile, Father Pietro Bandini, a New York-based priest, was doing what he could for Italian immigrant families, working to move them out of the city as quickly as they arrived at Ellis Island. He saw the opportunity for them as agricultural workers since many were comfortable working the land as small fruit and vegetable farmers.
Bandini was assigned as the chaplain to Sunnyside and began advocating for families as he could. Known to challenge authority in the name of taking care of his prisoners, he went to work quickly, resolving unkept promises, working to advocate for the colonists and serving as an interpreter.
Over time, he got sick with some of the illnesses passed around the region and was sent to Northwest Arkansas to the Ozark Mountains for convalescence.
Moving to Northwest Arkansas
In June 1896, after Austin Corbin died unexpectedly, circumstances around Sunnyside began to change. New leaders were harsh. They ripped up the original contract, changed the parameters of the workers, required them to grow crops up to their front door, began taxing everything, required them to buy things from the plantation commissary, and only paid them in Sunnyside “dollars.”
The Italians looked at each other and said, “Something must change.” Father Bandini shared about a place he’d seen in Northwest Arkansas. He took a couple of leaders on a trip to view the new land of possibility, and as they came over the Boston Mountains, they exclaimed, “We are home!”
Everything about the region reminded them of their home in Northern Italy. Springdale was a town in the foothills of the mountains with cooler temperatures, beautiful, lush scenery, water-fed springs and fertile soil. But there was a problem: when leaving Sunnyside, most residents left behind everything they had. There was nothing to purchase the land they needed.
Because of the Civil War, the land was scorched. With the 1880 market crash, most residents moved into the cities and drove out of the countryside. From their perspective, the area was abandoned and available.
Bandini arranged for the land to be purchased and determined to name the town Tontitown after Henri de Tonti, an Italian explorer who traveled with the LaSalle explorers along the Mississippi River and later founded Arkansas Post, an original Arkansas pioneer.
Getting Started
Forty-one of the original 120 families relocated with Bandini and began establishing homesteads from the shacks and barns left behind. Three to four families shared the same land, even though many wanted the original 12.5 acres promised in their contracts.
Much opposition met the Italians. Some were stoned as they went to school, and one month before the dedication of their new church, the schoolhouse burned. All that remained unburned was a portrait of Saint Joseph hanging on the wall.
The church is the epicenter of community life for an Italian community, and they built back stronger than they started. They named the church for Saint Joseph as a remembrance of protection from the fire. The community began to grow, and letters arrived in New York, Michigan, and even back home to Italy, saying if you are Italian and Catholic and looking for a home in America, Tontitown is the place for you.
Tontitown fully incorporated in 1909, with Father Bandini serving as the first mayor. Many family members who arrived after these days through Ellis Island wrote Springdale, Arkansas, as their destination on the landing manifest.
An Annual Celebration
While none of it came easy, the residents of Tontitown have always had much to celebrate. In June 1898, the first community picnic gathering celebrated land, health and crops. The picnic was a thank you to Father Bandini for all he did to rescue them and establish a new community.
June was an obvious choice for a celebration near the Feast Day of Peter and Paul. But that’s a critical harvesting time to pause and interrupt procedures. So, over time, the festival moved to Aug., near the 15th, to match the Feast of Assumption and to honor the annual harvest. During the late 1970s and 1908s, the festival expanded from two to five days, with multiple traditions built over the decades, still celebrated annually.
For more information about Tontitown, visit the Historical Museum adjacent to City Hall. Also, plan to watch Cries from the Cottonfield, airing on Arkansas PBS, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m.
Special thanks to Museum Manager Emily Pinalto-Beshears for her help piecing together the history and personal passion that made these stories come alive. All images are used with permission from the Tontitown Historical Museum.
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