Campus Street Renamed In Honor of McIlroy Family

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A map showing McIlroy Avenue is at http://dailyheadlines.uark.edu/

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — By city resolution, a street on the University of Arkansas campus has been renamed in honor of the McIlroy family, long-time civic leaders who provided the initial 160 acres of land for establishment of the university in 1871.

The Fayetteville City Council approved a resolution on Dec. 6, 2005, renaming North Ozark Avenue to North McIlroy Avenue. It runs north-south along the west side of Kimpel Hall and the Sam M. Walton College of Business and then around the Chi Omega Greek Theater.

In 1871, when state officials were deciding where to put the state’s first public university, Fayetteville residents offered the best financial package, part of which included the well-situated farm of William McIlroy, the founder of McIlroy’s Bank & Trust, now part of the Arvest Group. Even after the university was established, the McIlroy family retained property to the south of the university along McIlroy Avenue that allowed for eventual expansion of the university campus. The family name is still used for the university’s McIlroy House, home to the University of Arkansas Press at the corner of Fairview Street and McIlroy Avenue.

“Through the years, the McIlroy family has continued to support the university and the community of Fayetteville through their philanthropic and civic endeavors,” said Chancellor John A. White. “It’s fitting that a name so closely associated with the founding of the University of Arkansas should also be reflected in the name of a street that our students cross daily.”

Most recently, Hayden McIlroy Jr. and his wife Mary Joe McIlroy committed $1 million for creation of an endowed professorship that will benefit the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the Walton Arts Center.

The only addresses affected by the change are university facilities. Washington County’s 911 emergency addresses for the Sam M. Walton College of Business, Kimpel Hall, the Chemistry/Biochemistry Research Building, Gibson Annex, Humphreys Hall, McIlroy House, Mullins Library and Yocum Hall will be updated with the new street name but otherwise unaffected. Street signs were changed in early January.

The city last changed the name of a street near campus in 2000. At the request of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, the city approved renaming a segment of Williams Street in honor of Charlie B. Whiteside III.