During a brief period in the 1920s, “uptown” was used — primarily by university students — to refer to the Fayetteville Square while “downtown” referred to Dickson Street.
In 1972, the Fayetteville School District opened an alternative school near the southeast corner of West Avenue and Spring Street and named it Uptown School, suggesting that the word “uptown” still had applicable connection to the city core.
Sometime between 2000 and 2010, though, Fayetteville residents began referring to the northern part of Fayetteville, especially along the College Avenue corridor north of Rolling Hills Drive, as “uptown.”
When the University of Arkansas moved some of its administrative offices north to the former Arkansas Western Gas headquarters on Sain Street, the university referred to the buildings as its Uptown Campus.
The official designation of buildings as “uptown” solidified verbal usage that had already begun to be used by residents.