The name for this boulevard is probably derived from the “Mission School,” the early name for Henderson School, which was established in the late 1860s near the present-day intersection of Lafayette and Olive.
Mission Boulevard runs approximately 3.2 miles within city limits from Lafayette Street around the western side and northern end of Mount Sequoyah to Starr Drive. The road continues as Mission Boulevard through the city planning area to about the Cedar Hill Drive intersection.
It becomes Bowen Boulevard after crossing the city boundary into Goshen’s planning area.
Beyond city limits through the 1920s, the street was known as the Goshen Road, and it was also a spur of the Jefferson Highway during the 1920s before becoming designated Arkansas Highway 45.
The early General Land Ordinance map refers to it as the “Road from Fayetteville to King’s River.”
Its lowest elevation of 1,376 feet above sea level is at its crossing of Crossover Road, and its high point within city limits of 1,492 feet comes a little more than a half mile to the west as Mission climbs over the foothills of the northern end of Mount Sequoyah and passes the entrance to the Fayetteville Christian School.
Outside the city limits to the east, Mission crosses an even higher point of 1,543 feet near its intersection with the appropriately named Miles View Road.
The Boston Mountain Divide crosses Mission Boulevard twice, once at its intersection with Lafayette Street and a second time beyond city limits near Son’s Chapel.