Beatles' 15-Minute Layover In Arkansas Memorialized For All Eternity (VIDEO)

For 15 minutes 47 years ago, Walnut Ridge, Arkansas was the red-hot center of the universe: The Beatles were in town.

Well, they weren’t in town exactly: They were standing on the tarmac at the regional airport during a stopover on their way to a dude ranch in Missouri and the locals were, at first, loathe to believe the few eyewitnesses.

That first stop may have been brief, but it so excited Walnut Ridge that when the Beatles’ plane stopped over at the airport again, a good portion of the town was waiting for them.

The legend of the two encounters looms so large even now that Walnut Ridge has unveiled a sculpture of the band and is hosting a tribute concert.

The Beatles-centric new tourism initiative has made the town the butt of a few jokes, but local residents like Kathy Hall -- who told the Daily Mail that she wouldn’t sell the copy of Something New she’d gotten all four band members to sign “if someone offered me a million dollars” – aren’t embarrassed. The town unveiled an "Abbey Road" statue over the weekend to commemorate the time the Fab Four spent there.

The visit is even part of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, which notes that:

On September 18, 1964, the group finished a concert at Memorial Coliseum in Dallas, Texas, and immediately boarded a plane owned and operated by Reed Pigman. (Pigman owned American Flyers Airlines out of Dallas. The Beatles chartered one of Pigman’s planes during the 1964 tour.) Pigman owned a ranch in Alton, Missouri, that would serve as a getaway before the group’s final U.S. concert of the year, which would be in New York. Before traveling to Alton, the Beatles made a brief stop in Walnut Ridge. The Walnut Ridge airport provided the ideal spot for the group to change planes before heading to Missouri. The runway was built as a training facility during World War II and could handle large aircraft. Also, the Beatles could avoid the crush of screaming fans by landing at a secluded airport at the edge of a small town.

Walnut Ridge is far from the oddest place tangentially related to the “Fab Four” to sell itself to tourists as an mandatory stop for Beatlemaniac tourists. The obscure ashram in India where the Beatles Maharishi Mahesh Yogi practiced still receives visits from fans devoted enough to make the trip to Rishikesh, India.

Check out Walnut Ridge's ode to the Beatles below:

Comments

[firebirdam7]

09:20 PM on 09/22/2011

The Beatles. There will never be another band better.

[ptrgamb]

01:55 AM on 09/21/2011

I think it's nice that the townfolk enjoyed the Fab Four's visit so much

[brettrobbins]

09:47 PM on 09/20/2011

Italics

[phoenixbc]

12:18 AM on 09/21/2011

Don't be dissin' Italics. Italicans have just as much right to exist as Frenchican, Germacans, Englicans, and Americans.

[brettrobbins]

02:15 AM on 09/21/2011

Me not dissin' 'em, me shoutin' outta 'em.

[brettrobbins]

09:47 PM on 09/20/2011

More celebrity porn. Just what we need.

[dogdave]

07:17 PM on 09/20/2011

i guess arkansas wants to forget when the south burned all the beatle albums
when lennon said he was bigger than christ

[mburgh]

07:43 PM on 09/20/2011

As an Arkansas resident, all I can say it was Memphis where those albums burned, and man, I wish I had some of them now.

[Norman6661]

12:01 AM on 09/21/2011

Those women didn't. Not all Southerners are like teabaggers even though 77% of teabaggers are from the American South.

[rane13]

06:46 PM on 09/20/2011

The Beatles " Just Once in a Lifetime"

[BobSacomano]

06:11 PM on 09/20/2011

I don't imagine Billy Bob was too happy to see his wimmin-folk traypsin' over to that airport to see these pretty boys.

[28 if]

05:38 PM on 09/20/2011

yeah yeah yeah....fans also stopped the demolition of the house geogre harrison slept in back in 1963. when he was the first beatle to visit america

[badboyxyz]

04:02 PM on 09/20/2011

yeah ... to all those people;e who say .. the beatles sucked or they weren't a good band... lets see what other musicians get a monument dedicated to them 40 years AFTER the fact that they just stopped over for 15 min in an airport. the beatles are / were a once in a life time phenomenon. no one has ever compared to them ( ok maybe elvis , sinatra and the stones) and no one EVER will

[lindamom]

05:00 PM on 09/20/2011

Brings back such good memories...I am STILL in love with John.

[davesf]

06:20 PM on 09/20/2011

I've been a professional musician for over 40 years - The Beatles songwriting, musicianship, sense of adventure and simple brilliance is second to none, and they haven't played a note together as a band since 1969. I love the Stones, I love Radiohead, I like a lot of stuff. They'll be the first to tell you they can't touch the Beatles, as John Lennon once said about the Stones "money wise or power wise."

[davesf]

06:42 PM on 09/20/2011

Ooops, that was "music wise, money wise or power wise"...

[anirschl]

03:37 PM on 09/20/2011

Nice story. I'd sure the heck rather see something like this than some idiot errecting a statue of Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin or some other Tea-Flake that is out for self gain

[tolchocks]

02:52 PM on 09/20/2011

Wow,this is really going to cause one hell of a shakeup in Walnut Ridge.First to put up the Beatle's statue,they will have to remove the current statue.You know, the one of "The guy who sat next to Buddy Ebsen on a bus that time".

They will also have to change the town's motto from "Yer lookin' at it" to "the Beatles came through once and din't even notice".

The town's official pastime will change from watching grass grow to watching pigeon crap accumulate on Ringo's nose.

People will stop asking if this is the town from Little House on the Prairie (actually Walnut Grove) and start asking "What is the quickest route the hell away from here?"

[Norman6661]

12:03 AM on 09/21/2011

Please, this is the state that gave us a pretty terrific president!

[Readbetweentheelevens]

03:57 AM on 09/22/2011

If you're a cigar smoker...

[cclawnj]

02:40 PM on 09/20/2011

Not for a million, maybe, but perhaps for $100,000.

[Louie Rey]

02:39 PM on 09/20/2011

The reason for this memorial is simply because The Beatles were (and based on their current music sales) the best. It's like in hockey, there was Wayne Gretzky and there was everybody else. Well, in rock and roll and popular music, there was The Beatles and there was everybody else.

[cclawnj]

02:47 PM on 09/20/2011

That may be clear in hindsight, but I remember a period, still early in the band's career, when everyone I knew professed to prefer the Rolling Stones to the Beatles. The Beatles became sort of old hat after awhile. Today I am still more into the Stones, The Who and The Kinks than I ever was The Beatles -- but of course they started the "British Invasion" ball rolling, and we would probably never have heard of the others if not for those lads from Liverpool.

[siras]

05:28 PM on 09/20/2011

You must be kidding. Everything the Stones did could be summed up in about 2 or 3 songs, and that would be it. I don't know where you are from, but in LA and NYC the Stones were never considered in any way better than the Beatles.

[28 if]

05:40 PM on 09/20/2011

the beatles changed the world...not the rolling stones!

[loufalce]

02:27 PM on 09/20/2011

Why is this worthy of a memorial?They were just a band for chrissakes. Their fifteen minutes ended decades ago.

[cclawnj]

02:51 PM on 09/20/2011

I more or less agree with your first two sentences, loufalce, but if the Beatles' fame were of the proverbial 15 minutes variety, you would have no idea who they were. They made a profound mark on music, culture and even politics -- not always for the better, I might add.

[badboyxyz]

04:05 PM on 09/20/2011

longest 15 min i've ever seen . i wish my weekends lasted as long as that 15 min ... btw i hope you're not serious but i imagine you are . probably a lady gaga fan

[davesf]

06:44 PM on 09/20/2011

I'm both a Beatles and a Lady Gaga fan. She's actually a really good musician who writes some good stuff if you can get past the big show biz stuff...

[loufalce]

08:48 PM on 09/20/2011

Wrong! I absolutely HATE Lady Garbage and about 90% of post 1981 MTV "music".

[mykulbee]

02:24 PM on 09/20/2011

Says something about the boys when, forty years later, they still cause a stir just from having 'happened' somewhere. I would never trade those times, so glad to have experienced early rock and the Beatles. Fortunately, you just can't know what you missed if you weren't there.