By PJ Tracy
Murfreesboro Diamond
The Glen Campbell Memorial Highway is now official.
Signs were placed recently on State Highways 301, 19 and 26 by Branch Construction.
The legislative effort was started in 2023 in Arkansas Senate Bill 535 that was sponsored by local elected officials Senator Steve Crowell and Representative Justin Gonzales following the groundwork being done by the Murfreesboro Advertising and Tourism Commission.
The bill stated that “Glen Travis Campbell was born on April 22, 1936, in Billstown, Arkansas … [and] began to learn to play the guitar when he was four years old with a five-dollar guitar bought from the Sears, Roebuck Company catalogue.”
Campbell, who left Arkansas during his teenage years “always billed himself as being from Delight, Arkansas” and would go on to “achieved fame within the music industry by playing guitar with well-known musicians, including the legendary group of studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, The Beach Boys on their landmark album, Pet Sounds; Frank Sinatra on Stangers in the Night; and The Monkees on I’m a Believer.
Campbell would achieve solo fame with the songs such as Gentle on My Mind, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Galveston and Wichita Lineman.
He also has star appeal on the screen and not just the radio airwaves, appearing in several movies and shows with Arkansas connections, including “True Grit”, based on Arkansan Charles Portis’ novel of the same name and as the star of the movie “Norwood” based on the book also by Charles Portis as well as hosting The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and The Glen Campbell Music Show.
In his later years, in 2014, Campbell raised awareness about Alzheimer’s disease when he opened up to his fans about his struggle with the disease in a documentary chronicling his farewell tour called “Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.
Campbell died on August 8, 2017, and is buried in the Campbell family cemetery in Billstown.
The bill stated that “the designation of the Glen Campbell Memorial Highway is essential to preserve the music history of southwest Arkansas; [to] honor one of Arkansas’s famous sons; and [to] promote the economic development of communities in Pike County.
While the bill didn’t pass in 2023, in late 2025 the City of Murfreesboro, the Town of Delight and the Pike County Quorum Court all passed resolutions in support of the act.
On Dec. 5, 2025, the Murfreesboro Advertising and Tourism Commission, with chairman Jamie Terrell’s signature, sent a letter of request to the Arkansas Highway Commission to officially approve the measure of the memorial highway.
Then, on Feb. 13 of this year. the Arkansas Department of Transportation replied to the commission saying they preliminary approved the plan with only the details of sign left to be worked out.
“It means everything … not just to the family, but to the communities,” said Steve Campbell. “We get about 6-10 visitors a week at the cemetery, and a lot of tourists come through here for the diamond mine, for the lake, and hunting. It’s just an experience. Having the Glen Campbell Highway down 301 to 19 and 29 back into Delight it guides people. This is where he came from.”
Steve, who is Glen’s nephew, would go onto tell a story “from back in the old says.”
He said on the stretch of Highway 301 headed to the Pike County Courthouse square, the Campbell family came to the Pike County Fair in Murfreesboro, approximately 1939-1940.
“All the family would come … Uncle “Shorty” Campbell and my father were part of a mule race that started about here [where First Baptist Church is now] and ended at the courthouse square. These mules had already brought the wagons with the Campbell family in it. There were about six to eight entries. They took off — but there was a blacksmith’s shop on the right just before the square. These mules had been taken to this blacksmith’s shop many, many times. Shorty was in third place, but when the two mules in the lead peeled off to go to the blacksmith’s shop, the lead two mules turned in, allowing Shorty to go right on by to win the race.”
Steve said the award was free ride tickets at the fair, which Shorty eventually “shared with his brother after he saw his long face.”
“So the history is all right here in the area,” Steve concluded. “It will be good for all of south Pike County, the whole of the county, good for everybody.”
