Archive for the ‘Ozarks’ Category

Spring on the Spring

Monday, May 15th, 2017

It’s breakfast time at the Olde Stonehouse Bed & Breakfast Inn on Main Street in Hardy, and innkeeper Vickie Rice is talking about the town she fell in love with after moving to Arkansas from Ohio.

Indeed, Hardy has its charms.

The homemade biscuits are hot, the eggs are cooked perfectly and I listen intently as Rice talks. She serves on the Hardy City Council and the Hardy Advertising & Promotion Commission, and she’s determined to find replacements for several restaurants that have closed in recent years. As the summer tourism season nears in this historic community along the Spring River, Rice hopes to help fill the void with occasional dinners, brunches and even afternoon high teas in a house built during the 1920s at a time when visitors were flocking to the area.

“By 1920, two blocks of Main Street were filled with businesses, including a bank, two cafes, two drugstores, a Ford automobile dealership and a grocery,” Wayne Dowdy writes in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “Town leaders — perhaps most notably drugstore owner William Johnston — tirelessly promoted Hardy as a place where city dwellers could find relaxation. In an interview with a Memphis Press-Scimitar reporter, Johnston boasted that Hardy had the ‘finest fishing in the world.’

“Although most residents welcomed tourists, some townspeople found it difficult to adjust as the average population increased by thousands during the summer months. In 1935, café owner Tennie Meeker exclaimed: ‘You take a big trainload of people and dump them down suddenly in a small town like Hardy, and it nearly works everybody to death.’

“As the 20th century progressed, tourists increasingly relied on automobiles to travel to the Spring River area. Resting near the intersection of national highways 62 and 63, Hardy was easily accessible for those who traveled by car. When large-scale federal highway construction began in the 1950s, the tourism population shifted from long-term visitors to those looking for a weekend getaway.

“The established tourism industry in Hardy was augmented in 1955 with the construction of retirement homes by West Memphis developer John Cooper. The founding of Cherokee Village increased tourism to the Ozark foothills, and within a decade, the Hardy area was recognized as an important retirement center. In 1968, the Arkansaw Traveller Folk Theater was established in Hardy to preserve the culture of the Ozarks.

“When the railroad depot closed in the 1970s, some Main Street businesses relocated. This relocation accelerated when the Spring River flooded in December 1982. In their place, shops specializing in antiques and crafts were opened, which along with the draw of the Ozarks’ natural beauty helped Hardy remain a popular tourist destination.”

Hardy, which was established in 1883, is a product of the Kansas City, Springfield & Memphis Railroad.

The Arkansas Legislature’s offer to pay companies $10,000 for every mile of track laid in the state led to a boom in railroad construction during the decades after the Civil War. The town was named for James Hardy, a railroad contractor from Batesville.

Hardy is in northern Sharp County, and the county seat was in the southern part of the county at Evening Shade. It was a long trip on poorly constructed mountain roads. In 1894, Hardy was named as a second county seat, serving the northern part of Sharp County (Ash Flat was made the sole county seat in 1963). By the 1900 census, there were 347 people living in the town.

A lucky break for Hardy came in 1908 when a train’s mechanical failure resulted in a wealthy Memphis physician named George Gillespie Buford being stranded in Hardy. He walked around the area with his wife while waiting for the train to be repaired, and the couple decided it would be a nice place for a summer cottage.

In 1909, Buford purchased 50 acres on Wahpeton Hill. He later purchased additional land and constructed 10 cottages in 1912 to house summer visitors.

In 1932, L.L. Ward of Blytheville opened a nearby resort known as Rio Vista.

The YWCA built Camp Miramichee in 1916, the Boy Scouts built Camp Kia Kima the same year and the Girl Scouts built Camp Kiwani in 1920.

Hardy was filled each summer with visitors from as far away as St. Louis, Memphis and Little Rock.

“In addition to the railroad, bus service also connected Hardy to the rest of the world,” Dowdy writes. “By 1930, the town held 508 permanent residents, but its visitor population swelled to 1,000 per day between July and September.”

There are still shops in the old brick and stone buildings on Main Street in downtown Hardy, and Saturdays downtown can resemble a large flea market. But the biggest draw remains the Spring River, which in late spring and summer attracts hordes of weekenders in their 20s and 30s to float the river and party along its banks.

Charles Crawford describes the river this way in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: “Flowing through northeastern Arkansas for about 75 miles in a southeastern direction, the Spring River empties into the Black River near Black Rock. Mammoth Spring, adjacent to the Arkansas-Missouri state line, serves as the headwater for the Spring River. It expels more than 9 million gallons of water each hour through a vent 80 feet below the surface of Spring Lake, a low-turbidity body of water created by a dam downstream from the spring in what’s now Mammoth Spring State Park. Although the water from the spring flows into the lake with great force, the vent’s depth prevents viewers on the surface from seeing the characteristic bubbling that springs typically produce. The consistent discharge at the lake’s bottom keeps the river above a minimum depth year-round.

“The Spring River is joined several miles downstream by the South Fork, which flows eastward from its origin. As it is not fed by Mammoth Spring, the South Fork of the Spring River carries a less consistent volume of water and sometimes isn’t suitable for canoeing during later summer and early fall. However, its extensive gravel bars provide good sites for camping and picnicking.

“The constant supply of cold, clear water provided by this river and its tributary creeks, along with the rich alluvial soil built by the regular flooding from heavy rainfall, attracted people to the area from the first human discovery. … Major development in the area began when the Kansas City, Springfield & Memphis Railroad was built through the valley from 1881-83.”

Mammoth Spring is the largest spring in Arkansas, the second largest in the Ozarks and the seventh largest in the country as it pumps out an average of 9.78 million gallons of water per hour at a constant temperature of 58 degrees.

“U.S. Highway 63 now provides rapid travel through a large part of the scenic landscape along the river,” Crawford writes. “Hardy has particularly benefited from this access, becoming one of the most popular areas in north Arkansas. The upper portion of the Spring River is especially popular for swimming and canoe trips. Fishing also draws many visitors to the river. In addition to fish native to the area, the cool water temperature allows the stocking of trout throughout the year. Fly-fishing for rainbow, brown and cutthroat trout has become a popular sport. Increased recreational use beginning in the 1970s resulted in elevated levels of water pollution, but effective environmental protection has managed to maintain water quality along the river.

“Two fish hatcheries are located on the Spring River. The first, Mammoth Spring National Fish Hatchery, is operated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and is adjacent to Mammoth Spring State Park. The second, the Jim Hinkle Spring River State Fish Hatchery, is operated by the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission and is located two miles downstream from Mammoth Spring.

“Two small dams are located on the Spring River, both near the origin of the stream at Mammoth Spring. They are too near the headwaters of the river to provide flood control, thus leaving much of the river in a fairly natural state. The upper part contains numerous rocky rapids, several waterfalls and pools containing drifts and underwater snags. Floods occur frequently.”

Like Hardy, the city of Mammoth Spring came about in 1883 due to the railroad.

A Memphis native named Napoleon Hill opened the first school at Mammoth Spring in 1888 and promoted the town as a summer retreat for Memphians.

In 1887, the Mammoth Spring Improvement Co. constructed a dam at the spring to power a gristmill, cotton mill and cotton gin. The 198-foot limestone dam created Spring Lake. The property was purchased by the Arkansas-Missouri Power Co. in 1925. The company constructed a hydroelectric facility that operated until 1972, when it was donated to the state.

“Only the dams on the Spring River remain as testimonies to industrialization as the enterprises failed to find long-term success,” Sarah Simers writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “From the 1880s to the 1920s, Mammoth Spring had a textile mill, a shoe manufacturing plant and a soda bottling factory. Calumet Cotton Factory was the major employer in 1889 and was described as a two-story brick textile mill with 120 looms, 5,000 spindles and 150 employees. According to historian Brook Blevins, this factory was ‘a rare representative of this Southern industry in the Ozarks.’ The Chanticleer Packing Co., a poultry processing plant, opened during the Great Depression and provided jobs for Mammoth Spring and Fulton County residents until 1956.

“The tourist industry also began in the 1880s. In 1889, the first large hotel, the Nettleton, was built, and the Culp Hotel and Charlton Hotel soon followed. Like Eureka Springs and Hot Springs, Mammoth Spring profited from the health crazes of the late 19th century, which recommended bathing in hot natural springs as a cure for a host of physical ailments. … Memphis residents often vacationed in the town during the summer months. Finding the climate of the Ozark town to be much cooler than the Delta, they built large homes on the bluffs overlooking the river.”

Railroad passenger service on the Frisco line ended in 1968, but Mammoth Spring was easily accessible by automobile since it’s on U.S. 63. The former Frisco depot, which was built in 1886, was converted to a state park visitors’ center in 1971.

The Arkansas Legislature had approved the establishment of Mammoth Spring State Park in 1957, but land purchases didn’t begin until the late 1960s. Most land purchases had been completed by 1975.

According to an Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism publication: “In the late 1990s, the depot received a complete restoration with murals, memorabilia, authentic furnishings and life-size figures that portray train crews, station workers and passengers from the early 1900s. Audiovisual programs and exhibits tell the story of Mammoth Spring and the effect of the railroad on the area. A vintage Frisco caboose is parked nearby. On March 16, 1987, the park opened the 10th Arkansas Welcome Center just off U.S. Highway 63 and within sight of Missouri. In addition to providing travel and tourism information, the center also houses a gift shop, exhibits and offices. Park facilities include a modular playground, pedal boat rentals on the lake, a pavilion, picnic sites, a baseball field, a walking trail and an overlook at the springhead. … The walking trail circles the lake and crosses the old mill dam that provided power for the flour mill and the hydroelectric plant. Visitors may also tour the old power plant.”

The Arkansas Welcome Center is on the site that long housed the Mammoth Spring cattle sales barn.

Like Hardy, Mammoth Spring has a downtown district filled with old buildings. On the Friday night I visited, Wood’s Riverbend Restaurant and Fred’s Fish House were crowded with diners.

I had been advised by a friend to try out the German food at a tiny place downtown called La Pastorella. It was good advice.

German food in Mammoth Spring. Who knew?

Rural Arkansas serves up surprises around every turn.

Into the Ozarks

Wednesday, August 24th, 2016

Leaving the annual Johnson County Peach Festival, we headed up Arkansas Highway 103 toward Oark.

That road, which winds from the Arkansas River Valley into the Ozarks, can be an adventure. It contains some of the state’s most daunting switchback curves. I can’t imagine trying to drive it when it’s starting to snow or sleet in the winter.

Looking at the covered hillsides along this route, it’s hard to visualize a landscape here that once was denuded by timber companies that would cut the trees and move on, not bothering to replant.

“Throughout the Arkansas River Valley, Johnson County has the largest amount of timber,” Jennifer Koenig Johnson writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “However, the timber industry provided only a temporary respite of prosperity, eventually declining in the 1930s and leaving many people to seek better opportunities elsewhere. In some cases, towns disappeared because they functioned based on the prosperity and success of the lumber industry. Starting in the 1930s, the U.S. Forest Service began buying up land that had been cleared and repopulating it in hopes of returning what was lumbered away.”

Johnson County’s population declined from 21,062 residents in the 1920 census to just 12,421 people by 1960.

Thousands of trees were planted during the Great Depression by the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps who were stationed at Camp Ozone, which was established in 1933. About 200 men lived at the camp.

On Dec. 18, 1907, President Teddy Roosevelt had signed a proclamation creating the Arkansas National Forest (now the Ouachita National Forest) on land south of the Arkansas River.

On March 6, 1908, he signed a proclamation creating the Ozark National Forest north of the Arkansas River, including large parts of Johnson County.

“The Ozark National Forest was the only major hardwood timberland under governmental protection at that time, and the forest would assist the furniture industry in northwest Arkansas as a renewable source of valuable hardwood,” Mary Wood writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “The first forest headquarters was in Fort Smith. Samuel J. Record was the first forest supervisor, administering both the Arkansas (Ouachita) and Ozark national forests. Late in 1908, the Ozark National Forest received its own supervisor, David Fitton, who moved the headquarters to Harrison. In 1918, the headquarters moved to Russellville.

“Presidential proclamations increasing and decreasing the area of the Ozark National Forest occurred frequently during the early years. Three of the more significant changes were the executive order of President Franklin Roosevelt transferring the Magazine Ranger District from the Ouachita National Forest to the Ozark; the addition of the Henry R. Koen Experimental Forest on June 14, 1950; and the proclamation of President Dwight Eisenhower on Nov. 8, 1960, creating the St. Francis National Forest.”

We continued north on Highway 103 to where the Mulberry River flows. This tributary of the Arkansas River is one of our state’s most beautiful mountain streams.

“It flows generally southwest from its source and empties into the Arkansas River south of the city of Mulberry in Crawford County for a total length of approximately 70 miles,” Guy Lancaster writes in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “Reportedly named for the number of mulberry trees growing in its vicinity, it is today well known among canoeists. The area around the Mulbery River has been the site of human habitation as far back as about 10,000 B.C. In historic times, the Osage Indians claimed much of this part of Arkansas, including the area drained by the Mulberry River, as their hunting grounds.

“The Cherokee settled in the area after leaving northeastern Arkansas and were formally given land in much of northwestern Arkansas in 1817, though they were later pressured to cede these lands in 1828. Permanent white settlement in the Mulberry River Valley began soon thereafter, mostly along the lower reaches of the river, near where it empties into the Arkansas River. The largest of these settlements was the community of Mulberry, which got its start after the completion of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad in 1876.”

Canoeists and kayakers are drawn to the Mulberry when the water is right like bugs to a lamp. Margaret and Harold Hedges once wrote in a magazine story: “It offers an infinite variety of faster water, slow water, roaring rapids, rock gardens, choppy chutes, twisty channels — all sandwiched between pools of deep milky water that is serene and beautiful.”

Paul Austin, his son Josh and I even crossed the footbridge across the upper Mulberry between Oark and Catalpa. A group of children who had been swimming there were headed back to the highway on the hot summer day. It was an idyllic scene, like something out of a movie.

At that point, we were in the middle of seeing if we could finish the huge burgers at both the Oark General Store and the Catalpa Café & General Store.

Josh and I succeeded. Paul was the wimp in the group, unable to finish the second burger.

Oark is the best known of the two establishments. But the food is just as good — maybe even better — at Catalpa. Highway 103 ends at Oark, but the pavement continues near the banks of Mulberry on what’s now a Johnson County road to Catalpa. You’ll see signs so you’ll know when to turn down a short gravel road to the Catalpa Café.

The breakfast menu there features everything from homemade biscuits to pancakes to a breakfast burrito. Eggs benedict is served on Sundays. Coffee is free with any order.

The burgers for lunch and dinner all contain a half of pound of beef. The Catalpa Burger has barbecue sauce, sautéed onions and pepper jack cheese. Dad’s Burger has fried jalapenos, pepper jack cheese and Sriracha sauce. The Bubblehead comes with bacon, pepper jack cheese and jalapenos. The Juicy Lucy, which I had, is a cheese-stuffed burger with sautéed mushrooms and onions.

There’s also pulled pork, smoked brisket, turkey and several daily specials. There are always several kinds of homemade pies, and they’ll sell you whole pies if you order them in advance.

The Oark General Store, which is popular with bikers, opened in 1890. Its menu also has a selection of half-pound burgers (such as the Angry Hornet with grilled jalapenos, bell pepper, pepper jack cheese and chipotle mayonnaise).

Here’s how Michael Tilley described the place in a 2013 story for The City Wire: “Reagan and Brian Eisele are not who you would expect to find mixing up a special hushpuppy recipe or applying an egg wash to the top of a homemade pie. The couple, who married in April 2012, bought the historic Oark General Store on May 18, 2012. With little to no restaurant experience, they dug their entrepreneurial hooks into an unforgiving, low-margin business. The store first opened in 1890 to provide supplies for those intrepid souls who chose to scrap out a living in Oark, a town connected to the world then by a few rugged and often impassable logging trails. The building purchased by the Eiseles includes some of the original furnishings from that 1890 building. Today the store is a restaurant but does sell fuel and several food items.”

Tilley went on to tell how the couple met: “Reagan was a staffer for then-U.S. Rep. John Boozman, and Brian was a staffer with U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina. They were part of a tour to learn about the emerging energy industry in Azerbaijan. Although the energy reserves were abundant, the fledgling country had little in the way of modern pipeline and storage infrastructure when it became an independent country. The first major pipeline — the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan — opened in July 2006. Brian and Reagan and other congressional staffers ventured into the important geopolitical crossroads — the country is located between Russia and Iran — during February 2010. The tour period included Valentine’s Day. … The love blossomed, and Brian and Reagan visited each other’s families.

“Brian grew up in Aiken, S.C., and graduated from the University of South Carolina in December 2005. Reagan grew up in Hartman in Johnson County and graduated from Arkansas Tech University in May 2006. During an April 2012 visit, Brian proposed to Reagan, and the wedding was planned for a site near Ponca in the scenic Boxley Valley. While Reagan was in Arkansas planning the wedding, she noticed a blurb about the Oark General Store.”

She had taken Brian there once for pie and coffee. She let him know it was for sale.

Brian told Tilley: “When I worked in Congress, I worked under and alongside some of the most hardworking and intelligent people. But at the end of the day, just because I was a lowly peon in the scheme of things, I never really felt any concrete achievement for myself. It was always for others.”

He wanted a business of his own. And he didn’t want to raise a family in the nation’s capital.

Brian’s parents helped finance the $170,000 purchase a few weeks after the couple was married in 2012.

Well-known Arkansas food writer Kat Robinson described the store this way: “The fantastic burgers from past incarnations are still there, great pies of half a dozen varieties are always in the case and there’s always a conversation going on within the walls, just like with those gentlemen of old who came to warm themselves around the stove with gossip and coffee.”

After eating at Catalpa and Oark, we took Arkansas Highway 215 from Oark until the road intersects with Arkansas Highway 23 (the Pig Trail) at Cass. If there’s a more scenic stretch of road in Arkansas, I don’t know what it is.

Highway 215 runs along the Mulberry for 18 miles between Oark and Cass and is more like a national parkway than a state highway with its scenic overlooks and interpretive panels.

In the November 2014 issue of Arkansas Highways magazine, Marilyn Collins wrote: “The flowing water of the Mulberry River offers an Ozark view not experienced by many. The river twists and turns around rock ledges, beneath scenic overlooks, and reveals the geological history and cultural heritage of Johnson and Franklin counties. … During the spring, water levels are high and challenge the most adventurous. Water calms during the summer months, providing a playground for visitors to swim, float, skip rocks and fish.”

Black bears often are seen in the area.

“People have strong attachments to the Mulberry River Valley landscape,” said Mary Brennan of the U.S. Forest Service. “While many people visit here to participate in recreational opportunities, others return as descendants of the pioneer families who settled here 100 years or more ago. Many people who live and work in this area today are third- and fourth-generation residents. People’s attachments to this landscape are very strong.”

Matt Pfeifler of the U.S. Forest Service is a third-generation Oark resident. He said: “The Mulberry River was an important part of my childhood and my family’s lives. … It’s important that people have opportunities to appreciate and experience this place.”

What’s known as the Mulberry River Interpretive Driving Trail is a partnership between the Forest Service, the Federal Highway Administration, the Arkansas State Highway & Transportation Department, the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission and the Cass Job Corps Center.

Spots along the route include:

— The Redding Recreation Area and Spy Rock Trailhead: There’s a canoe launch on the river here. The Spy Rock Trail, which can be accessed from the Redding campground, is an eight-mile loop that connects with the Ozark Highlands Trail. Signage at the Redding campground interprets historic settlements along the Mulberry River and the nearby Hill Cemetery.

— Indian Creek canoe launch: Signage at this site interprets the impact of the Civil War on the area.

— High Bank canoe launch — Signage here interprets prehistoric occupation of the region.

— Yale Store site — The store was located at the confluence of the Mulberry River and Little Mulberry Creek. Signage interprets the schools, churches and social life along the Mulberry River.

— Wolf Pen Recreation Area — There are campgrounds and picnic areas. Signage interprets the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Forest Service.

The road was busy on the day we made the trip from Oark to Cass since an event known as the Homegrown Music Festival was being held at Byrd’s Adventure Center on the banks of the river. Hundreds of people were camping at Byrd’s, which has an 800-acre area for camping and an extensive trail network for ATVs and motorcycles. There’s a heated shower house, covered picnic areas, stages, a general store and even a 2,500-foot grass airstrip for those wanting to travel to the area in small private planes.

Byrd’s offers canoe, kayak, raft and tube rentals on the Mulberry.

Once we hit Highway 23, we headed south toward Ozark. No trip along the Pig Trail, of course, would be complete without a stop at Turner Bend.

The first Turners moved to the area from Tennessee in about 1830. Elias Turner arrived in 1848, served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and was a member of the Arkansas Legislature in the 1870s.

In 1900, the first bridge across the Mulberry River at this point was constructed. Eleven years later, William Eli Turner built a store at the south end of the original bridge. The years 1935-36 saw a new bridge built and the original store burn. The Turner family built another store just south of the current location. In 1939, Champ Turner (the son of William Eli Turner) married Flora Coleman and took over operation of the store. The store closed during World War II while Champ served in the Army. In 1946, Champ and Flora reopened the store. They continued to operate it until 1978 when Champ died of cancer.

Enter Brad Wimberly.

Wimberly bought the store from the Turner family in 1981, moved into the back and started renting canoes. He built the current facility in 1986-87 and expanded his operations through the years with campgrounds, cabin rentals and other improvements.

In August 2011, Wimberly threw a big celebration to mark the 100th anniversary of the store and his 30th year of ownership.

Beth Turner, a granddaughter of Champ and Flora, told the state Department of Parks & Tourism in 2011: “Turner Bend for 100 years has kept that valley going. Grandma and Grandpa, they made that area a family. They were always there, and the light was always on.”

Beth Turner produced a documentary on the area titled “Ties That Bind.” She said her grandparents did everything from bandaging cuts to pulling cars out of ditches.

“The Turners raised three sons in half of their building while conducting business out of the other half,” Wimberly said in 2011. “In those days, the store was known as the home of Bubbles the myna bird. Apparently, Bubbles had a large vocabulary, some of it X-rated. Champ was something of a trader and had lots of old guns hanging from the wall inside the store. The public restroom was an outhouse sitting over a creek.”

Jill Rohrbach wrote in 2011: “Turner Bend was more than an outfitter or supply source. It was a social center, like an office water cooler. State politicians, including a young Bill Clinton, stopped by to shake hands and explain their positions to Champ, who would then pass the information on to people in the valley who visited the store. People, mostly from outside the region, began flocking to the Mulberry to canoe in the later 1960s after the guide book ‘The Mighty Mulberry’ was published.”

Wimberly said: “Champ did not have a gauge as such but could tell you how many steps were covered and whether the river was rising or falling.”

No all of the natives welcomed the visitors.

“Wimberly and his friends canoed the Mulberry often,” Rohrbach wrote. “He particularly remembers conversations with Champ during the 1976 and 1977 spring float seasons. ‘When we returned for a float trip in 1978, the store was closed,’ he says. ‘Champ was soon to pass on.’ The Turner family leased the store out for a couple of years before selling it.”

Wimberly said: “As the saying goes, fools rush in. I purchased the store in May 1981. Good thing I was only 26 since there were hardships and problems at every turn. I lived in the back of the old store like the Turners before me. The wiring was faulty, the water well was suspect, the roof was leaky and there was no insulation. It was so hot inside the store that I would step outside and hose myself down and then step in the cooler just to be able to stand it.”

Wimberly built a rock landing on the river in the fall of 1981. He married his wife Vien on the banks of the river.

“University of Arkansas students flew down the trail on Fridays and back up on Sundays,” Wimberly said. “Businessmen traveling to and from Little Rock would stop, going and coming back. Hog fans with their flags flying stopped on their way to games. Canoeing on the Mulberry grew in popularity.”

A new store was built adjacent to the old building in 1986.

“We had to build part of the new building, tear part of the old one down, build some more, tear the rest of the old building down, then complete the construction,” Wimberly told Rohrbach. “The whole process took about a year, and we never closed a day.”

When what’s now Interstate 49 opened in 1999, traffic slowed on Highway 23.

“I had naively thought that a lot of the regulars would continue to travel the Pig Trail since it is so much shorter than the interstate route, but I was wrong,” Wimberly said. “We lost all of the regular traffic. Students now attend the University of Arkansas and don’t even know what the Pig Trail is.”

Turner Bend lives on, though. The Mulberry has continued to increase in popularity as a float stream, and motorcyclists discovered the Pig Trail. There were several dozen motorcycles in the parking lot the day we were there. It remains an Arkansas classic.

Peaches and coal

Friday, August 5th, 2016

It was almost 100 degrees.

Not exactly the best weather for an outdoor festival.

Still, it was hard to find a parking place in downtown Clarksville on the Saturday of this year’s Johnson County Peach Festival, which first was held in the summer of 1938.

Tents filled the lawn of the Johnson County Courthouse as vendors sold arts, crafts and food items.

There was a time when Arkansas was among the leading peach-growing states in the country.

Peaches came from Johnson, Franklin, Pope and Faulkner counties.

There were northwest Arkansas peaches from Benton, Washington and Boone counties.

There were southwest Arkansas peaches from Howard, Pike and Clark counties.

There were Crowley’s Ridge peaches from Cross and St. Francis counties.

Peaches were shipped commercially to surrounding states, and roadside stands were common.

“All of the farmers around here used to have 20, 30 or even 100 acres of orchards,” Steve Morgan told us at his Peach Pickin’ Paradise between Clarksville and Lamar.

Cars were lined up at the entrance of the pick-your-own operation, which the Morgan family has owned since 1977. The family grows more than 20 varieties of peaches and nectarines on about 3,500 trees. Five generations of the Morgan family have operated orchards in this area.

James Griffin Morgan founded Morgan Farms in 1876 and grew a few peaches on the farm for personal use. George Morgan Sr. began growing peaches commercially during the 1920s. When George Morgan Jr. returned to Johnson County following his service in World War II, he began his own orchards.

Steve’s son Mark told Jessica Mozo of Farm Flavor earlier this year: “Grocery store peaches are picked firm so they can travel. We have the benefit of being able to leave our peaches on the tree until they soften and get their sugar. People can come pick peaches and eat them the same day. It’s a completely different product than what you find in a store.”

George Morgan Jr. and his wife Geraldine — Steve’s parents — began the pick-your-own business in 1977.

“People in the industry scratched their heads and wondered how my grandpa would get people to come out and pick all these peaches,” Mark Morgan told Mozo. “But he did it by staying open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, and building relationships with people so they developed many repeat customers. It’s also a fun family experience. We’re thankful when we see parents and grandparents bringing their kids out. Many grandparents worked picking peaches in the 1950s and 1960s, and they enjoy sharing that with their grandkids. We like to put smiles on faces.”

He noted that his grandmother, Geraldine, still helps out: “It’s pretty cool being able to work with my dad, my stepmom Carol, my brother James and my grandma Geraldine, who’s still involved. And now we have Kate (the daughter of Mark and his wife Shay) crawling around. We hope she will end up performing brain surgeries. But if she wants to grow peaches, that’s all right with me.”

“Peaches were introduced as a crop in Arkansas after the Civil War, as were many other fruits and vegetables, during the New South diversification movement in agriculture,” James Jackson writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “This movement was brought on by the need to diversify crop varieties to avoid the economic risk of a single-crop economy, as evidenced by the overproduction of cotton prior to the war. The 1879 development of the yellow-fleshed Elberta peach variety in Marshallville, Ga., by Samuel Rumph made peach growing possible as a viable industry. The Elberta, named for Rumph’s wife, softened more slowly than other varieties. Because of this advantage and the development of refrigerated railroad transportation, peach transport became possible. As railroad spurs spread westward and into the countryside, commercial peach production first reached Arkansas in areas such as Crowley’s Ridge in northeast Arkansas, Clarksville and Nashville.”

The first Johnson County Peach Festival was held in the community of Ludwig on June 26, 1938. Several thousand people showed up, including Gov. Carl Bailey. The festival was sponsored by the Johnson County Fruit Growers Association.

Jennifer Koenig Johnson writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: “Bailey crowned Miss Inez Mane Bohannon as the first festival queen — Miss Elberta — and autographed peaches. He was given a basket of locally grown peaches. Clarksville resident Frank E. McAnear related a vivid account of how the peach industry arrived in Johnson County and how peaches became an important part of the county. Other events included orchard tours, a potluck-style picnic and musical events.”

James Tolbert and Johnson Taylor had first raised Elberta peaches in Johnson County in 1893.

“In 1897, the Missouri Pacific Railroad became interested in this rising industry and, after negotiations, created a partnership including the peach farmers, the county and the railroad,” Johnson writes. “Despite financial and environmental setbacks through the years, the industry thrived and became an integral part of the county. … Since the first year, the peach festival has been held in Clarksville during a selected weekend in June or July. Events include musical performances, vendors, street dances, a greased-pig chase and contests (frog jumping, peach eating and terrapin derby). The beauty pageants include Queen Elberta, Miss Arkansas Valley, Miss Arkansas Valley Outstanding Teen, Princess Elberta, Little Mister, Teen Peach, Tiny Peach and Teeny Peach. Events also include a parade, a cardboard boat regatta, a race and a fishing derby. Festivities conclude with horseshoe and bass tournaments.”

The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture operates its Fruit Research Station in Johnson County. What originally was known as the Peach Substation began near Lamar in cooperation with the Johnson County Fruit Growers Association and the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation. It moved to its current location on Red Lick Mountain in 1959. The current headquarters building opened in 2007. Two years later, the building was named in honor of Cole Westbrook, who was the resident director from the start of the research facility in 1948 until 1976.

A peach substation also opened in Howard County in 1948.

The peak year for peach production in the state was 1940 when almost 2.3 million bushels were shipped. Late freezes in 1952 and 1953 following warm winters spelled doom for the Arkansas peach crop.

“Production sank to 150,000 bushels, hurting both producers and brokers,” Jackson writes. “Brokers contracted with growers in California, Florida and southern Texas — places without a late frost. The Arkansas growers lost the market, and the impact was devastating. For Howard County growers, the only option was to pull up the trees and convert land for other purposes, often for pasture for cattle or to raise chickens. Johnson County fared little better. Growers learned to expect a full crop in only three out of five years while others reported that profits had ceased as far back as 1950.”

Morgan said he lost half of his crop due to a late freeze in March of this year. That night saw temperatures drop as low as 23 degrees in parts of the orchard. He might have lost all of the crop had he not hired a pilot to fly a helicopter over the trees during the evening.

I witnessed the terrapin derby during my walk around the Johnson County square. I also bought peach jellies and jams.

The visit to the Johnson County Peach Festival brought back memories of an equally hot day two decades earlier when I attended the festival with the state’s new governor during his first weekend in office. I had joined the staff of Gov. Mike Huckabee on his first day as the state’s chief executive — July 15, 1996. I accompanied him to Clarksville the following Saturday so he could ride in the Johnson County Peach Festival parade.

I was dressed in a coat and tie since it was a far less casual time. Members of the governor’s staff were expected to dress that way. The state trooper who accompanied us, Bill Stotts, also was dressed in a coat and tie.

As the parade was about to begin, I envisioned Stotts walking the route on one side of the car with me walking on the other side of the street. Being new, I asked him: “What do we do while the governor is riding in the parade?”

Stotts looked at me, smiled and replied: “I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to sit in that air conditioned police car over there and cool off.”

It was my first lesson in learning to relax a bit on the job.

In addition to peaches, coal mining once was an important part of the Johnson County economy.

“The emergence and use of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad, which was completed from Little Rock to near Clarksville in 1872 and on to Fort Smith in 1874, as well as telegraph lines, connected Clarksville and other towns in Johnson County to the rest of the nation,” Johnson writes. “Likewise, the coal mining industry increased in size and provided jobs for many citizens in the county. Coal had first been found in 1840 on an outcropping on Spadra Creek, and barges began shipping coal to Little Rock and other places in 1843, though it was not until the advent of railroads in the county that the industry became profitable.

“The principal population centers connected with coal mining were Coal Hill, Spadra, Jamestown, Hartman, Montana and Clarksville. Fletcher Sryglay, the land agent for the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad, recruited many European immigrants for the coal mines, adding to the cultural diversity of the area, especially in the emergence of Catholic and Lutheran populations. However, the use of Slavic immigrants to break a strike led to what’s called the Jamestown War, in which many men died.

“Coal Hill, settled in 1876 and originally known as Whalen’s Switch, was a violent and dangerous place in the latter part of the 19th century, reporting numerous incidents of drunken fights, murders and robberies. However, in 1887 and 1888, Coal Hill shipped 10 times as much coal as the rest of the state. Between 1910 and 1920, it was the second-largest town in the county. This success was in part due to the employment of the convict lease system, in which prisoners served as veritable slave labor. An early strike in 1886 made public the horrors of the system in which convict miners were kept in filthy quarters and whipped if they did not meet their daily quotas. An 1888 legislative inquiry resulted in a few minor changes to the system, though convicts continued to be used for mining coal for years to come.”

While the coal mines are a thing of the past, there are still natural gas wells in Johnson County. The first well to produce profitable quantities of gas began operating in November 1921 five miles northwest of Clarksville. Arkansas Western Gas Co. built an eight-inch gas line in 1929 from the Clarksville Field (then the largest in Arkansas) to Fayetteville.

Each summer, though, it’s neither coal nor natural gas that they celebrate in Clarksville. It’s the peach.

 

The hydroelectric battle

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

The visitors’ center at Bull Shoals-White River State Park is well worth the visit.

On the back deck is a spectacular view of Bull Shoals Dam with the lake on one side and the cold water of the White River on the other side.

If you have any doubt that Arkansas has the best system of state parks in the country, this facility will help put such doubts to rest.

Inside, exhibits tell the story of the White River, both before the construction of Bull Shoals Dam in the late 1940s and early 1950s and in the decades that have followed.

As an Arkansas history buff, the thing I found most interesting was a framed front page of the Baxter Bulletin from 64 years ago (it now publishes six days a week but was a weekly at the time). It was the issue published after President Truman spoke at the dedication of Bull Shoals Dam on July 2, 1952.

Truman, never one to mince words, took a shot at Arkansas Power & Light Co. (now Entergy Arkansas) and the other private power companies that had opposed the use of federal dams to generate electricity.

According to the articles in the newspaper, AP&L engineers had constructed a model in an attempt to show that flood control and hydroelectric generation weren’t compatible goals for the same dam.

Truman didn’t hesitate on the day of the dedication to make fun of that model.

What you must understand is that AP&L had been the most politically powerful business entity in the state for several decades thanks to the skills of Harvey Couch and C. Hamilton Moses.

Couch, who grew up in rural Columbia County, had at the age of 35 in 1914 purchased the only electric transmission line in the state. That line ran 22 miles from Malvern to Arkadelphia.

Couch later built two dams on the Ouachita River near Hot Springs (forming Lake Hamilton and Lake Catherine) to generate electricity for his growing utility company.

By 1930, AP&L had 3,000 miles of lines and served customers in 63 of the state’s 75 counties. Couch also formed Mississippi Power & Light Co. and Louisiana Power & Light Co. He built the first modern natural gas-fired power plant in this part of the country near Monroe, La., and was appointed by President Hoover to the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corp., which was formed in 1931 to address problems caused by the Great Depression.

“The only luxury the longtime resident of Pine Bluff (where AP&L had its headquarters) allowed himself was a rustic log cabin on Lake Catherine,” Patricia Laster writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “He called it Couchwood, and there he entertained everyone who had helped him in his rise to fame, as well as international bankers and presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

Couch used his political influence to persuade officials in Washington not to create a taxpayer-subsidized Arkansas River Valley Authority that would cut into AP&L profits. Instead, the Roosevelt administration pushed for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was created by Congress in May 1933.

Like Couch, Moses grew up in rural south Arkansas. He was born on a farm near Hampton in 1888 and worked in area logging camps when he wasn’t in school. He graduated from what’s now Ouachita Baptist University at Arkadelphia in 1908 and then headed south to New Orleans, where he obtained his master’s degree in Southern history from Tulane University. He earned his law degree in 1911 in Little Rock and then went to work for Gov. George Donaghey. Moses later served as an adviser to Gov. George Hays and Gov. Charles Hillman Brough.

Moses became the general counsel for AP&L and Couch’s other businesses in 1919. Moses moved into the role of AP&L president following Couch’s death in 1941 and proved just as politically influential as Couch had been. Moses was the AP&L president until 1952 and remained as board chairman until 1955.

Sherry Laymon writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas that “private power companies profited greatly during World War II as they operated at full capacity to meet war production demands. However, decreased power loads after the war created financial difficulties for utility companies, which eventually led to an intense struggle between public and private power entities in the 1940s. To increase public demand for electricity, Moses initiated his Arkansas Plan, designed to encourage community leaders to utilize local residents, resources, capital and labor to strengthen their communities and attract business and industry into the state. The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, state organizations and private corporations supported his efforts and organized to form the Arkansas Economic Council in December 1944.

“Moses, Arkansas’ business cheerleader, visited many Arkansas communities and motivated Arkansans to demonstrate civic pride in their towns by making notable improvements to attract new industry. As a result, local residents enhanced their communities by paving city streets, whitewashing storefronts, landscaping public property and developing recreational programs. They also built houses, churches, hospitals and schools, which attracted more industry to the state. Moses then traveled across the country preaching the gospel of Arkansas to draw corporate attention to the state. Within 10 years, the state reaped bountiful harvests as new industry created 36,000 jobs.”

Arkansas remained a rural, poor state, though. And large parts of rural Arkansas remained without electricity.

“Private power companies had explored the possibility of building a dam at Wildcat Shoals above Cotter as early as 1902 but never began work toward it,” Scott Branyan writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. “Congress approved the construction of six reservoirs in the White River basin in the Flood Control Act of 1938. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report in 1930 had recommended the Wildcat Shoals site along with seven others as being the most effective of the 13 investigated. However, in a 1940 report, the Corps of Engineers presented the Bull Shoals site as an alternative to Wildcat Shoals, where unsuitable foundation conditions had been found. This report recommended the construction of Table Rock and Bull Shoals as multipurpose reservoirs for flood control, hydropower generation and other beneficial purposes, coming to the conclusion that the reservoir projects were justifiable.”

Pushing early on for construction of dams on the White River was Congressman Claude Albert Fuller, who served in Congress from 1929-39. Fuller, who had practiced law at Eureka Springs before being elected to Congress, helped lead the fight for adoption of the Flood Control Act of 1938, which followed a series of devastating floods in the region in 1937.

Fuller was defeated in the Democratic primary of 1938 by Clyde Ellis. Fuller went back to Eureka Springs to practice law and served as president of the Bank of Eureka Springs from 1930 until his death in 1968. He continued as a private citizen to advocate for the dams.

Meanwhile, Ellis took up the fight in Congress. Ellis, the oldest of nine children, had been raised on a farm near Garfield in Benton County. The farm had no electricity, and rural electrification became his passion.

Ellis helped form the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which was designed to protect the interests of the New Deal rural electrification programs.

Ellis ran for the Senate in 1942 and lost in the Democratic primary. John L. McClellan became the state’s new senator. Ellis was hired in 1943 as the first general manager of the NRECA.

In a 1984 history of the NRECA titled “The Next Greatest Thing,” it was written: “The record of NRECA in those years, stamped with the strong and powerful personality of Ellis and his spellbinding, single-minded leadership, is studded with stunning victories, few defeats.”

Sheila Yount writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas: “Known as Mr. Rural Electrification, Ellis led the electrification association through funding battles for the Rural Electrification Administration, which provided low-interest loans to the nation’s electric cooperatives, and fiercely fought the power companies, which opposed the rural electrification program. Rural service was far more expensive to create than service in urban areas. When the power companies charged higher rates for rural service, their customers used less electricity, making the service increasingly unprofitable.

“Ellis also helped persuade the federal government to include hydropower plants at Norfork Dam in Baxter County and other dams in Arkansas that were originally designed for flood control only. He fought major battles to give the cooperatives access to the power from those dams. Ellis credited the NRECA’s success to the grassroots support of the electric cooperatives.”

Ellis wrote a book titled “A Giant Step” in 1966.

“The wires which tied the houses of rural people together also seemed to unite their spirits,” he wrote. “Beginning in the early days and growing through the years, there has been some unusual quality about the rural electrification program, which has drawn people of diverse political and social views together in a common purpose. The people who work for our program feel they’re working in a cause or movement or a crusade, which many of them can’t define.”

Yount writes: “Besides the political arena, the association’s role expanded to provide many services for the nation’s electric cooperatives, including retirement and insurance plans; training for directors and employees; legal seminars for cooperative attorneys, safety training; and communications assistance. Ellis also helped bring electricity to people in 30 other countries through the Agency for International Development. This program was a compilation of various federal efforts to provide foreign aid during the Cold War. Created by the Kennedy administration, AID used American dollars to fight poverty and bring about development in Third World nations. Ellis traveled to Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and other countries promoting rural electrification, using his experiences in Arkansas to prove to governments and citizens that such a program was possible anywhere in the world.”

Construction on Norfork Dam on the North Fork River began in the spring of 1941.

“The North Fork River was a strong candidate for a tributary flood control project,” Branyan writes. “The Corps noted it was a primary contributor to flooding in the White River because of its steep banks and big feeder streams, which frequently swelled quickly during periods of runoff. For a number of years, the Corps and private entities had studied the site for potential hydropower use as well. … Securing funding for Depression-era projects at the time of a possible impending war, however, was difficult.

“Congressman Ellis argued that a dam with a power plant was immediately needed for any increased manufacturing requirements during possible wartime production demands. He succeeded in obtaining funding and additional authorization for hydropower in the Flood Control Act of 1941, and the Little Rock District of the Corps of Engineers awarded the construction contract to the Utah Construction Co. and Morrison-Knudsen Co.”

The Norfork powerhouse was operational by 1944. A second generator was in use by February 1950.

The dam was made entirely of concrete — about 1.5 million cubic yards to be exact. The site that was chosen is 4.8 miles upstream from the confluence of the White and North Fork rivers at Norfork.

A Missouri Pacific railroad spur from Norfork to the site of the dam was built to move equipment, concrete and 2,000 tons of reinforcing steel. A total of 27,000 railroad cars moved along the spur during construction.

“During 1940, several hundred small farms were abandoned in Baxter County and left in foreclosure,” Branyan writes. “However, the construction of a dam in the area meant prospects for work during the Depression. As soon as word of the approval of Norfork Dam appeared in the newspapers, locals began contacting Ellis to inquire about jobs. During the four years of the project, the number of workers employed on both the dam and powerhouse was 815.

“Farmland around two communities along the river — Henderson in Baxter County and Bakersfield in Missouri — was inundated. Around Henderson, about 400 landowners had to relocate. Twenty-six cemeteries were moved. Crops continued to be harvested into the late fall of 1942. The lake began to fill by Feb. 1, 1943.”

Construction of Bull Shoals Dam began in 1947. That dam required 2.1 million cubic yards of concrete. At the time of its construction, it was the fifth-largest concrete dam in the country, and its powerhouse was the largest building in the state. Powerhouse construction began in September 1950 and concluded two years later. The final two generating units were installed in 1963.

“The completion of the dam and reservoir immediately began to affect the local economy,” Branyan writes. “Media coverage attracted attention to the region and resulted in the quick growth of the tourist industry. In 1940, there were only 13 businesses in the area that provided overnight accommodations. By 1970, 300 such establishments could be found. Assessed taxable real estate values, per capita income and manufacturing payroll rose dramatically in the following decades. The area also now supports a retirement community.

“The dam put an end to long, multiday fishing floats from Branson, Mo., to Cotter. Jim Owen of the Owen Boat Line had operated a float trip business on the river for many years. Largely through Owen’s promotion, the White River garnered a reputation for excellent smallmouth bass fishing. But the new reservoir soon offered equally excellent lake fishing for a number of warm-water species as well as stocked trout below the dam. Marina, boat businesses and fishing guide services sprang up rapidly to handle the influx of anglers.”

Resorts such as Gaston’s became nationally known due to the quality of the trout fishing created by cold-water releases from the dam.

Back to Clyde Ellis: The man known as Mr. Rural Electrification retired from the NRECA following a heart attack and stroke in 1967. He was named general manager emeritus.

Ellis later worked for the U.S. secretary of agriculture and for McClellan in the U.S. Senate. Ellis died in February 1980 in Washington following another stroke and is buried across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital at Arlington National Cemetery.

Here in Arkansas, he probably should be remembered as the man who handed AP&L a rare political defeat while bringing government-subsidized hydropower to a poor, rural state.

The retirement state

Wednesday, April 15th, 2015

It was 1948 and World War II veterans were starting families and buying homes after having attended college on the G.I. Bill.

In the flat cotton country of east Arkansas, a West Memphis businessman named John A. Cooper Sr. had an idea.

Cooper looked to the west — to the Ozark foothills to be exact — and purchased 400 acres near where Otter Creek runs into the Spring River. At first, he used his Otter Creek Ranch as a family retreat. But Cooper had a bigger plan in mind. He began to buy up other land in Sharp and Fulton counties, and in 1953 he formed the Cherokee Village Development Co. with the idea of selling lots to people in Midwestern states such as Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Gov. Orval Faubus attended the dedication of Cherokee Village in June 1955 (it was Faubus’ first year in office) and declared it to be the “coming mecca of the Ozarks.”

Cooper eventually built two golf courses, seven lakes, 350 miles of roads, a water system and three recreation centers.

“Less than 10 years after the town’s founding, Cherokee Village had grown so much that additional land was necessary to satisfy the demand for new homes,” Wayne Dowdy of Memphis writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “However, adjoining land was occupied by the Memphis Boy Scout Council’s summer camp, Kia Kima. In 1964, Cooper approached the Boy Scouts and offered to give them a larger tract of land on the South Fork of the Spring River in exchange for their property. The Memphis youth organization relented after Cooper agreed to construct several new buildings on the Boy Scouts’ new property. The Kia Kima trade and other land purchases expanded Cherokee Village to 13,500 acres by 1980.”

Dowdy writes that the development of Cherokee Village “had a profound impact on Arkansas. The retirement community industry became an integral part of the state’s economy as the older Americans who flocked to Cherokee Village transformed the state into one of the most innovative and popular retirement destinations in the United States.”

In the 1960s, Cooper set his sights on Bella Vista in northwest Arkansas, which had a long history as a resort.

John Spurgeon writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture: “William S. Baker, a Benton County Presbyterian minister, and his wife Mary decided in 1915 to develop a summer recreation area in Benton County. Damming Sugar Creek created a large lake suitable for swimming. The Bakers’ plans called for adjacent tennis courts, golf links and nearly 400 lots selling at $100 each. A contest was used to select the resort’s name with the winning entry being Bella Vista. Business was not lucrative, however, and by 1917 the resort was offered for sale.

“Samuel and Mary Linebarger and their three sons moved in 1900 to Bentonville for a change in climate following Mary’s diagnosis with tuberculosis. After she died two years later, the family left Arkansas. The Linebarger Brothers Realty Co., founded by Samuel’s three sons, returned to purchase Bella Vista along with adjoining acreage, seeking a new investment. Initial expansion plans called for a pavilion suitable for dancing, a 30-room lodge and a dining hall. A nine-hole golf course was added in 1922, a large swimming pool in 1924 and the 65-room Sunset Hotel in 1929. In 1930, the brothers developed a cave into a nightclub, calling it Wonderland.

“The resort retained the Bella Vista name and opened from June to Labor Day, renting rooms by the day or the week, selling lots and building cottages. Bella Vista amenities included swimming, golf, tennis, fishing, camping, horse rides, rowing, games and dances with orchestral music. The Linebargers catered to wealthy, urban families who could spend the entire summer on vacation. Under the leadership of Clarence A. Linebarger, the youngest Linebarger brother, summer business progressively improved. The Great Depression, World War II and changing vacation concepts — with automobiles and highways allowing people to venture to new and distant places — resulted in the resort’s decline.

“Elzy Lloyd Keith, who operated the Lake Keith Resort in Cave Springs, purchased Bella Vista in 1952, billing it as ‘Bella Vista the Family Resort, the Beauty Spot of the Ozarks.’ Keith transitioned Bella Vista into a family resort, substituting roller skating for dancing, and added a restaurant, grocery and motel. … Keith closed the Sunset Hotel after one year, giving it to a Baptist minister to start a school. Within five years, the school also closed.”

Cooper moved in, quickly buying up land and dividing it into lots. During the next 35 years, more than 37,000 lots were sold. Almost 13,000 of them have been developed. A study in 1987 showed that 16.5 percent of all Benton County tax revenues and 45 percent of the property tax revenues for the Bentonville School District were coming from Bella Vista. The Bank of Bentonville reported in 1992 that 34 percent of its deposits came from Bella Vista residents.

The population of Bella Vista soared from 2,589 in the 1980 census to 9,093 in the 1990 census to 16,582 in the 2000 census to 26,461 in the 2010 census.

On Nov. 7, 2006, residents voted by a two-to-one margin to incorporate it as Arkansas’ newest city. With the explosive growth of northwest Arkansas, Bella Vista can no longer be considered a retirement community. It’s instead a growing municipality.

In 1970, Cooper set his sights on southwest Arkansas as he began to develop a 20,000-acre tract in Saline and Garland counties into Hot Springs Village.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture notes: “Cooper had been approached separately by two people with the idea of creating a retirement community, state Sen. Bud Canada and Peter D. Joers, the president of the Dierks Coal & Lumber Co. After touring the property by air, Cooper realized the potential of the land and immediately bought 20,000 acres from Dierks Forests Inc. His plan was to create a peaceful retirement community in a natural setting that would offer all modern-day conveniences without the hassle of living in an urbanized city. Unlike his other two communities, Hot Springs Village was created as a gated community in order to provide security for its residents and as an experiment to see if the gated community would result in more residents than the non-gated communities.”

The population grew from 2,083 in 1980 to 6,361 in 1990 to 8,397 in 2000 to 12,807 in 2010.

There were smaller retirement communities in the Arkansas hills built by developers other than Cooper.

Horseshoe Bend — located in parts of Izard, Sharp and Fulton counties — was developed along the Strawberry River.

“In the late 1950s, Bill and Dick Pratt sold 200 acres of land to a group of developers from Texas,” writes Steven Teske of the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. “The brothers — businessmen from Little Rock and Newport respectively — had purchased abandoned land for a retirement community. The Texas developers began selling lots, but they then defaulted on their business loans, and the Pratts regained control of the community. Purchasing additional land, they continued selling lots, as well as creating streets and utilities for the new houses. Where the woods reportedly once hid a whiskey still, an airport was built.

“Creeks that flowed into the Strawberry River were dammed to create several lakes. Cedar Glade Lake failed to fill with water as was intended; engineers discovered that the water was emptying into a previously unknown cave. They spent more than $100,000 plugging holes in the bottom of the lakebed. … A feature called Gobbler’s Knob, frequented by local hunters, was converted into the Turkey Mountain Golf Course. Construction began in 1961, and the first nine holes were open to the public in 1963; the remaining nine holes were finished in 1971.

“The Pratts employed a sales team that at one time had 100 employees. In all, they created 56 subdivisions on 14,000 acres, and by 1974, they had sold 12,000 lots. Many of the houses were prefabricated. More than half of the new residents were from Illinois (which accounted for a quarter of the residents), Missouri, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin. The city was incorporated in 1969, creating a city government and a police force, as well as guaranteeing oversight of the city’s utilities. Various new churches were formed, including Lutheran, Episcopal and Roman Catholic. Each was the first of its denomination in Izard County.”

A film and television producer named Albert Gannaway came to town in the late 1960s with the idea of creating a theme park to be known as Ozarkland. A replica frontier homestead at Ozarkland was to be the set for a televised music program known as “Ozarkland Jamboree.” The park and the television program were both financial failures. East Arkansas music promoter and developer Gene Williams bought Ozarkland in the early 1970s with the idea of creating an amusement park to be called Frontierland. That effort also failed.

“In spite of these failures, the development of Horseshoe Bend provided jobs for residents of the area,” Teske writes. “Retired farmers and business professionals opened shops and restaurants, and roughly half the sales staff of the development hailed from Arkansas. Construction jobs also employed workers whose previous income from farming had been considerably less. Not only did Horseshoe Bend bring the first golf course and first public swimming pool into the region, it also introduced the first Kiwanis Club and the first legal drinking establishments.”

The Pratts decided to sell their holdings in 1974 to a group known as Gulf South Advisors. It turned out to be a corporation involved in questionable activities. Millions of dollars intended for the further development of Horseshoe Bend were lost. A lengthy bankruptcy case put a halt to growth. Former salesmen for the Pratts became independent real estate agents, and a municipal improvement district took over the golf course and lakes.

Meanwhile, just north of Eureka Springs along Table Rock Lake, Robert McCulloch (a Missouri entrepreneur known for McCulloch chainsaws and for purchasing the London Bridge and reassembling it in Arizona) began work on a 4,500-acre retirement community known as Holiday Island in 1970.

“The developers donated one acre of land to Grace Lutheran Church, which was formed in 1972 by 26 Lutherans,” Teske writes. “A Presbyterian church was formed in Holiday Island in the 1990s. There are also two Baptist churches and a community church. In addition to building homes, the developers created two golf courses, a marina, a shopping center and a recreation center. … The area also has two assisted living facilities, a campground and motels and rental properties.”

In Van Buren and Cleburne counties, three Fort Smith businessmen — Randolph Warner, Neal Simonson and George Jacobus — decided in the early 1960s to buy land on the north shore of what would become Greers Ferry Lake for a retirement community.

“They hired a retired cotton broker named C.M. Owen to find a suitable location,” James White writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “In his Jeep, Owen followed the logging roads to a high point overlooking the green valley that was being filled to form the lake. A new corporation — Fairfield Communities Land Co. — formed by Jacobus, Simonson and Warner (later to become Fairfield Communities Inc.) began the purchase of land from the Nebraska Tie & Lumber Co., which owned the timberlands on the north shore of the lake. By 1965, the first 3,500 acres had been purchased by Jacobus and his partners. Lots were sold, and the price included a small annual amenities fee for the recreation facilities.

“All early activities centered near the marina, which was built in 1966. In 1967, more than 300 mobile homes were brought in to house the prospective lot buyers. The Wild Boar restaurant was built in 1967 on Highway 330. The second floor of this restaurant became the offices of FCI. The Civic Center building was built in 1972 and was where many of the social and community meetings were held. … Before and after the Wild Board restaurant burned in early 1980, the FCI offices and other businesses began moving to the present Indian Hills Country Club and the mall area.”

In addition to selling lots, the company began pushing timeshares in vacation homes in 1979. By 2006, about 7,800 lots had been sold (only 1,200 of them have houses on them). The number of residents was about 2,400, but there were an estimated 20,000 annual timeshare visitors. FCI later filed for bankruptcy, and the property owners association known as the Community Club assumed control. The city of Fairfield Bay was incorporated in 1993.

The development of these retirement communities established Arkansas as one of the most important retirement destinations in the country. Cooper, who was born at Earle in 1906 and received a law degree from the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., had a keen understanding of people who had been raised poor during the Great Depression before climbing into the middle class. He guessed correctly that some of them would want to retire in places where the cost of living was low and the winters weren’t as harsh.

The 1960s and 1970s were the boom period. Arkansas retirement developments advertised free vacations in markets across the Midwest. Couples would come to the state and spend a few days enjoying the amenities in exchange for participating in a “tour” with a real estate agent that was actually an intense sales pitch like something out of the David Mamet play “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Male high school teachers and coaches often would spend their summers as salesmen. The good ones could earn more money in three months of selling lots than they had earned in nine months of teaching.

The problem for the rural Arkansas retirement communities (Bella Vista is an exception since it’s now part of an urban area) is that the Baby Boomers are different from their parents. Fewer of them want to live by a golf course in a rural area during their retirement years. They tend to prefer urban areas with amenities such as fine dining, live theater, symphony orchestras and sports events.

College towns also have proved to be popular retirement spots due to the number of events they offer.

In our next installment, we’ll take a look at how these Arkansas retirement communities are now trying to reinvent themselves.

Dogpatch country: Circa 2014

Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

For Arkansans of a certain age, Dogpatch USA comes to mind when Newton County is mentioned.

Dogpatch, some believed, was the thing that would turn this remote, lightly populated county into the center of tourism for Arkansas.

The online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture describes Newton County as “mountainous, rural and isolated. The land, once respected and protected by native Americans, has come full circle with a large portion being protected by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a wilderness area.”

The Buffalo River and Little Buffalo River flow through the county, which was part of Carroll County when that county was created in 1833 as part of the Arkansas Territory. Arkansas became a state three years later.

In late 1842, the Arkansas Legislature created a new county in the Ozarks and named it after a U.S. marshal, Thomas Willoughby Newton.

“After beginning his career as a mail carrier and serving as U.S. marshal for Arkansas, Newton was elected to serve in Congress after the resignation of Archibald Yell,” C.J. Miller writes for the state encyclopedia. “John Belleh’s house on Shop Creek was designated the county seat until the designation was given to Jasper in 1843. The county had 10 post offices by 1856. The terrain made the area unattractive to land speculators, which was encouraging to people who could not afford land in other parts of the state. A school opened at Mount Judea around 1860. Western Grove Academy opened in 1886. Hunting and small farms sustained the residents, and livestock grazed the rugged land. The difficulty in farming the rough terrain resulted in farms being located along the river.”

There were only 24 slaves in the county in the 1860 census. A strong Union sentiment was present in these hills, and that resulted in a base of ancestral Republicans who thrived in Newton County when there were few Republicans elsewhere in Arkansas. Indeed, when I attended the Newton County Elk Festival last month, I saw dozens of Republican lapel stickers being worn and none for Democratic candidates. Long before the rest of Arkansas began to go red politically, Newton County had plenty of people whose loyalties were with the GOP.

The Civil War split families. Guerrilla warfare was common, and some families lived in caves.

“The county produced two famous leaders, fighting for different causes,” Rose Lacy writes for the encyclopedia. “James Vanderpool was a Union hero who returned home in August 1865. John Cecil, the former sheriff of Newton County, was known for showing off his twin pearl-handled pistols he had worn as a guerrilla leader for the Confederacy. Newton County most supported the Union. However, while searching for Cecil in 1863, Union troops burned Jasper to the ground and moved their sympathizers to Springfield, Mo.”

By 1870, there were only seven black residents of Newton County.

Change came slowly.

“Smaller farms were prevalent, while larger farms existed near the rivers,” Miller writes. “Potatoes, apples and peaches supplemented the main crop, corn. Cotton provided the cash crop for the Buffalo River valley. Lumber camps developed. Whether for added income or personal use, the production of moonshine made use of the surplus corn. A legend was born as Beaver Jim Villines became known for his trapping ability. Visitors went to Marble Falls and Tom Thumb Spring for the water’s healing power.”

Newton County hit its population peak in 1900 with 12,538 residents. There were 8,330 residents in the 2010 census.

Zinc and lead mining occurred in the county early in the 20th century. The community of Ponca was named after the Ponca City Mining Co. of Oklahoma. There wasn’t a paved road in the county until 1951, when Arkansas Highway 7 was paved from Harrison to Jasper.

Dogpatch would change everything, Newton County residents thought.

Businessman Oscar Snow of Harrison came up with the idea for a major amusement park and bought a trout farm at Marble Falls from Albert Raney Sr. to serve as the site of what would become known as Dogpatch USA.

“Snow and nine other investors formed Recreation Enterprises Inc. and approached Bostonian Al Capp with the idea,” Russell Johnson writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “Capp, who had rejected such offers in the past, agreed to be a partner in the enterprise. The partners acquired 1,000 acres. … Capp spoke at the groundbreaking on Oct. 3, 1967. The cost of the original construction was $1,332,000. The park originally featured the trout farm, buggy and horseback rides, an apiary, Ozark arts and crafts, gift shops, entertainment by Dogpatch characters and the park’s trademark railroad, the West Po’k Chop Speshul. Management added amusement rides in subsequent years.

“Many of the buildings in the park were authentic 19th-century log structures, purchased by board member James H. Schermerhorn. The logs in each building were numbered, cataloged, disassembled and reassembled at the park. In 1968, the first year of operation, general manager Schermerhorn reported that Dogpatch had 300,000 visitors. Admission was $1.50 for adults, half price for children. Al Capp’s son, Colin C. Capp, worked at the park that year and met and married Vicki Cox, the actress portraying Moonbeam McSwine.”

Real estate investor Jess Odom later bought controlling interest in the park. Odom added rides and campsites. He also hired former Gov. Orval Faubus as his general manager.

Odom’s financial downfall came in the early 1970s when he attempted to build a winter sports complex adjacent to the amusement park. There were warm winters, faulty snowmaking equipment, rising interest rates and a lack of interest in winter sports in the South.

“In order to keep the ski resort open, Odom used Dogpatch assets to secure loans at unfavorable interest rates,” Johnson writes. “Although Dogpatch made a profit in all but two years of operation, it could not overcome the burden of the Marble Falls debt. The city of Harrison rejected Odom’s proposals to refinance the debt with a bond issue, and plans to turn Dogpatch into a religious theme park called God’s Patch never advanced. … Dogpatch had its worst summer during the drought of 1980. Dogpatch declared bankruptcy in November 1980.”

A company headed by Wayne Thompson operated the park from 1981-87 before selling it to Melvyn Bell.

Bell, a Fort Smith native with an engineering degree from the University of Arkansas, was flying high in the 1980s. His company, Environmental Systems Co., generally was known as Ensco. It had a rare federal permit allowing it to destroy PCBs and other hazardous materials at an incinerator in El Dorado. The permit was obtained in 1981 after three years of public hearings. Only six commercial PCB incinerators were operating in the United States in the 1980s.

Bell had bought out his partners in the company in 1972. The company broke even or lost money until obtaining the federal permit. By 1986, there were revenues of $66.5 million at Ensco.

“I have no reason to do anything in the environment that’s wrong,” Bell told The Associated Press in early 1987. “In a state as small as Arkansas, or in a community as small as El Dorado, where 1 percent of that population works with me, it would be foolish to think that you could do anything wrong and not have that become immediately public.”

Bell gained widespread attention when he leased four of the bathhouses at Hot Springs from the National Park Service with plans to convert them into a restaurant, a bed-and-breakfast inn, a museum and a spa.

Other high-profile acquisitions by Bell included the Red Apple Inn near Heber Springs, a lodge on Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma, the Market Street Plaza shopping complex in west Little Rock, children’s radio station KPAL in Little Rock and Little Rock restaurants SOB, Alexander’s and the Heights Fish House.

He bought the Magic Springs amusement park at Hot Springs in addition to Dogpatch.

He even purchased the famed Belvedere Country Club at Hot Springs.

It all began going south for Bell following the stock market crash in October 1987. The value of his Ensco holdings fell from $42.3 million to $21.7 million in a two-month period. He had become highly leveraged with his myriad acquisitions. In a 1998 deposition, Bell said he was $5.6 million in debt.

I took my wife to the Red Apple Inn in 1990, remembering it as the grand resort that Little Rock insurance magnate Herbert Thomas had built. I was shocked to see it had fallen to Motel 6 status under Bell’s ownership. Fortunately, Dick and Patti Upton of Heber Springs later returned the Red Apple Inn to its past glory.

In November 2001, Bell was indicted by a federal grand jury for tax evasion. The trial was delayed repeatedly because of Bell’s health problems. The case was dismissed in May 2006. Bell died at age 68 in July 2006 of cancer.

The final summer season at Dogpatch had been in 1993.

Dogpatch briefly was back in the news in 2011 when Stewart Nance, Pruett Nance and Brent Baber (the Nances’ attorney) were awarded the Dogpatch property in circuit court. The Nances had brought a lawsuit following a 2001 accident in which Pruett Nance struck a steel cable while driving an ATV on the property.

Newton County’s hopes of attracting hundreds of thousands of people to an amusement park each year had ended. But something interesting has happened in a part of our state that some of us still think of as Dogpatch Country.

People ranging from Oklahoma oil and gas executives to Arkansas automobile moguls have built second homes there. Others with money rent cabins. There is, in fact, a bit of an upscale vibe.

Take the Floating Buffalo in Jasper, which can only be described as an upscale boutique. Or the adjacent Arkansas House, where one can purchase buffalo and elk burgers.

People with money to spend can be found in places such as the Nelms Gallery in downtown Jasper and Nick Bottini’s Low Gap Café, which is between Mount Sherman and Ponca.

Last Saturday night, folks crowded onto the large outdoor deck at the Low Cap Café, listening to live music.

“My grandfather and mother were full-blood Sicilian,” Bottini told Arkansas Living magazine. “I learned from them. … I studied five years at culinary school in New York. Then I went back to California, bounced around at various restaurants and resorts and eventually ended up in Arkansas after visiting relatives and falling in love with the state. Horseshoe Canyon Ranch is just up the road, and we are only a few miles from the Buffalo River.”

The restaurant is packed most weekends.

Horseshoe Canyon, the nationally recognized dude ranch operated by Barry and Amy Johnson, is one of those places that attract high-dollar tourists to the county. In addition to the families who spend the week there, the ranch has become a favorite spot for rock climbers from around the world.

Ponca-based Buffalo Outdoor Center also has gained a nationwide reputation. Mike Mills started Buffalo Outdoor Center as a canoe rental operation in 1976. The Buffalo River had been designated a national river just four years earlier. There are now modern log cabins and a lodge, zip lines and more.

There also are various artisanal products that come from Newton County. One example is the honey harvested by Eddie Watkins for his Buffalo River Honey Co. I don’t claim to be a honey connoisseur, but it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.

“We operate only 100 hives,” Watkins says. “Our bees harvest nectar from wildflowers untouched by chemical pesticides. Each year our honey, like fine wine, varies according to the flower blooms and the impact of the seasons. One thing remains constant: The character of our honey is unlike any you have ever tasted. You’ve not tasted pure wild honey until you taste our honey.

“We honor and practice our ancient craft much as beekeepers have through the centuries. Our bees have bred with wild strains. We avoid chemicals and manage pests with essential oils. Tasting is believing. All natural, totally wild honey is a revelation. From the first explosion of the floral scents and tastes to the finishing notes of our honey, it’s an unparalleled experience of complexity and nuance. The key is staying all natural. That’s when the floral gifts of our pristine wilderness areas come through.”

No, tourists aren’t flocking to get on rides at an amusement park in Newton County. That effort couldn’t sustain itself. But wild, wonderful Newton County appears to have found its niche. For those who love mountain scenery, good music, great food and friendly people, there are few better places to spend a weekend or longer.

“Gay Panic in the Ozarks”

Tuesday, May 20th, 2014

In 1968, as Republican Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller stepped up his efforts to root out corruption in Arkansas politics, a 32-year-old former FBI agent named Ed Bethune was asked to help remove the symbol of the Old Guard — Conway County Sheriff Marlin Hawkins — from office.

“The director of the Arkansas State Police warned me that we were walking into a hornet’s nest,” Bethune would write years later. “By the time we got to the courthouse, there were well over 500 Hawkins supporters milling around. Most were on foot and quite a few were armed. They were carrying pistols, rifles and shotguns and making no effort to conceal their weapons.”

Bethune vividly remembers how a Morrilton city policeman “jumped out of the shadows and stuck his shotgun in my stomach, saying, ‘Halt, I’m fixin’ to shoot you.’ As he pushed the gun harder into my belly, I realized that my life depended on the wiring between the rookie’s brain and his trigger finger, and I did not like the odds.”

Ed Bethune survived that day.

And Marlin Hawkins remained in office.

That incident from Arkansas’ colorful political past was one of many Bethune wrote about in his 2011 book “Jackhammered: A Life of Adventure.” In it, the former Republican congressman from Arkansas’ 2nd District did more than tell political war stories. The heart of the book is a trip Bethune took with his wife, Lana, in 1990 aboard their 31-foot sloop named Salute. The goal was to sail from Norfolk, Va., to Portugal. In an incident that received widespread media attention, the couple had to be rescued by U.S. Coast Guard helicopters after withstanding rough seas for 36 hours prior to being spotted.

After writing the book, Bethune told me that the sailing trip fundamentally changed him and helped him better understand his life to that point: “I didn’t really set out to write a memoir. I had a number of friends through the years urge me to write a book about that sailing trip. But I wasn’t real eager at first to write about something I considered a failure. We didn’t make it. I later thought about trying to turn it into a novel. What was I doing out in the middle of the ocean in a 31-foot boat anyway? As I thought about my life and the things that motivate me, I suddenly found myself writing about my childhood. As we grow older, I think we all begin thinking more about who we are and how we got to this point in our lives. My hope was that by reading this story, others might be inspired to be more introspective.”

Soon after finishing the memoir, Bethune began outlining his first novel.

“I had no idea when I started writing this novel almost two years ago that its release would come in the midst of an Arkansas firestorm about gay marriage,” he said last week. “I created two mythical counties in north Arkansas as the setting for my story and then developed this fictional proposition: Wounds and prejudices stemming from the Civil War, the Great Depression and other conflicts run deep in the Ozark hill country.”

The book — titled “Gay Panic in the Ozarks” — begins with the lynching of a young gay man, whose body is left hanging from a tree.

“The papers, blogs and airwaves are full of hot arguments about gay marriage,” Bethune said. “The culture war is obsessing America, and the noise gets louder every day. My book is not about gay marriage, but it does consider the wide range of cultural changes that have occurred since the 1960s. It digs deep, going beyond superficial political issues to the root causes of prejudice, the ugly force that bedevils humankind.”

Bethune described the protagonist of his novel, Aubrey Hatfield, as a “shamed man who seeks redemption for himself and for his community. ‘Gay Panic in the Ozarks’ deals with homosexuality, but it also invites the reader to think. … Recently, prejudice caused many Americans to fuss about a dispute about A&E and the program ‘Duck Dynasty.’ A few weeks later, people were arguing about an upcoming Discovery Channel show called ‘Clash of the Ozarks.'”

For the record, Bethune said he believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

“‘Gay Panic in the Ozarks’ goes to the heart of the matter, the age-old question of how to deal with the multifaceted problem of cultural adaption,” he said. “How do we find tolerance in the face of deep-seated religious beliefs? How do we conquer the curse of indifference, man’s impulse to maintain his neutrality in the face of great moral crisis? These are just a few of the reasons I believe there will be a good market for this story in 2014, a volatile election year that will produce endless talk about gay rights and the culture war.”

The book was edited by Gene Foreman, an Arkansas native who went on to serve for many years as managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

I’ve always found Bethune to be an interesting man. His parents divorced when he was 8. By his early teenage years, he was a self-described “problem child” who was getting into trouble on a regular basis at Little Rock. Bethune went to his mother’s hometown of Pocahontas in northeast Arkansas, a move he says “saved my life.” After graduating from Pocahontas High School in 1953, Bethune joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served until 1957, including a stint in South Korea. He met Lana at what was then Little Rock Junior College — now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock — after leaving the Marine Corps. He was 23 and she was 21 when they married.

Ed Bethune finished college and law school and then worked as a deputy prosecuting attorney in Randolph County in 1963-64. He was an FBI agent from 1964-68, serving in Newark, N.J., during the riots in the summer of 1967 that left 26 people dead and hundreds injured. After leaving the FBI, Bethune returned to Arkansas and began practicing law at Searcy. He lost to Democratic nominee Jim Guy Tucker in the 1972 race for attorney general but shocked the Arkansas political establishment six years later when he was elected to Congress. Bethune served three terms in the U.S. House and then left Washington following an unsuccessful 1984 race against U.S. Sen. David Pryor.

Bethune was the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party from 1986-88. He and Lana returned to Washington following George H.W. Bush’s 1988 election as president. Lana became the social secretary for Vice President Dan Quayle. Ed became a well-known Washington lawyer and lobbyist, the go-to man for Republicans who found themselves in hot water, men such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The Bethunes returned to Arknsas in 2009.

Bethune includes two quotes at the first of the novel.

One is from Canadian poet Bliss Carmen: “Indifference may not wreck a man’s life at any one turn, but it will destroy him with a kind of dry rot in the long run.”

The other is from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel: “What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means ‘no difference.’ A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. … Indifference can be tempting — more than that, seductive.”

Bethune is a heck of a writer. Just to give you a sample, here’s how the novel begins. The year is 1968: “Aubrey and Prissy finished their picnic and stretched out on a shady spot beside Sycamore Lake, wed to each other and to life in the hills of Arkansas. They listened to the mockingbirds singing their different songs, copycat chords in harmony with the whisper of pine needles and the rustling of leaves. A gentle breeze made a cat’s paw on the still water and then came ashore, a zephyr of cool air. The young couple snuggled and spoke warmly of living an unfussy life in the Ozarks. Their sweet talk added melody to the score. It was music, the music of the hills.

“Their dream, a bond made as childhood sweethearts, was coming true. Prissy would teach kindergarten; Aubrey would run the family hardware store and work part time as the deputy prosecuting attorney for their sleepy little county. Life in the Ozark Mountains, for those who love it, is a magnetic blend of simplicity and hardship, grounded in faith and in an unshakeable belief in the pioneering spirit. It had been good for their parents and grandparents. Surely, it would be good for them.

“Soon the afternoon shadows crept farther out onto the lake, darkening the water, warning of wounds and prejudices stemming from the Civil War, the Great Depression, the World Wars and other human tragedies. Such frailties run deep, and like the scab of a putrid wound, they will from time to time reopen and ooze pus. When that happens, a discordant note seeps into the music. On this September afternoon in 1968, a day made for lovers, Aubrey and Prissy Hatfield heard only what they wanted to hear. This is our home. Life is good.”

The investigation of the gay man’s murder goes nowhere.

Aubrey Hatfield is wracked by guilt that he didn’t do more.

Thirty-eight years later, he gets a second chance to confront what Bethune refers to as man’s greatest vice, “the refusal to see wrong and do something about it.”

Searcy County: Chocolate Roll Capital of the World

Friday, January 24th, 2014

I like to think that I know a lot about Arkansas.

But I’ll admit that I had no idea until recently that Searcy County is the Chocolate Roll Capital of the World.

I ran across a photo on a website of a sign in the county that makes that claim.

Then, I picked up a guide to the county published by the Greater Searcy County Chamber of Commerce and — wouldn’t you know it — there was a full page devoted to the subject.

Here’s what the guide has to say: “For generations, people in Searcy County have been baking and enjoying a dessert that few folks outside these parts have ever heard of. Namely chocolate rolls. Searcy County’s glory days with strawberries have faded into the pages of history and the stories of its older citizens, but the chocolate roll remains. Can anyone doubt that Searcy County in the Home of the Chocolate Roll and also the Chocolate Roll Capital of the World?”

The chamber even announced a Chocolate Roll Capital of the World initiative.

Who knew?

“Searcy County is the home of the Chocolate Roll Festival, with the centerpiece being the World Champion Chocolate Roll Contest,” the guide says. “This is a unique competition of local bakers to see who is the World Champion Chocolate Roll Maker. This contest is held in the early spring every year. The contest was the brainchild of the Marshall High School Art Club and teacher Brenda Smyth. Individuals get to pay a small fee to sample and judge the chocolate rolls and get to vote on the world champion. The batch of rolls with the most votes wins.

“Chocolate rolls are also available at several locations throughout the county and are always the biggest hit at local events. As you travel through Searcy County, you have to stop and locate one of the Ozarks’ classic desserts, the chocolate roll. Watch for the chocolate roll signs.”

I’ve always admired the natural beauty of this sparsely populated county.

And I like the people.

My wife and I met when we were living in Washington, D.C. We moved to my home state of Arkansas just after our wedding in October 1989. Melissa is a native of far south Texas, and I was anxious to show her various parts of the state after we moved here. One of the first events I took her to outside of Little Rock was the Searcy County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day banquet. Told that it was a dinner banquet, Melissa put on her best dress. She was surprised when we walked into the restaurant at Marshall and she saw that some of the men were wearing overalls.

They were at least their “dress overalls,” I explained to Melissa.

Searcy County’s population peaked at 14,825 in the 1910 census. A century later, it was down to 8,195.

I’ve never failed to enjoy the drive north on U.S. Highway 65 from the southeast part of the county to the northwest corner.

Crossing the Middle Fork of the Little Red River.

Driving through Leslie with a stop at Serenity Farm for bread and a one-block detour off the highway to drive through that scenic old downtown of stone structures.

Visiting Marshall, its square around the courthouse, one of the few remaining drive-in theaters in the state and perhaps even a stop for dessert at the Daisy Queen on the highway.

Admiring the scenery along Bear Creek. Among my favorite views in Arkansas is the view when you round a curve on U.S. 65 headed north and there’s a pasture and old barn on your left with rock cliffs to the right.

Seeing the Buffalo National River at Tyler Bend.

Perhaps making a side trip to Gilbert, the coldest spot in Arkansas (it was a negative two degrees on Friday morning) and the place where my old college buddy Rodney Slinkard now turns out wonderful art.

The Gilbert General Store, built in 1901, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places under the name Mays Store. Gilbert was founded in the early 1900s when a rail construction camp for the Missouri & North Arkansas Railroad was built and named in honor of Charles Gilbert, the secretary-treasurer of Allegheny Supply Co, which was building the railroad.

“Gilbert was a hub for commerce,” the chamber guide says. “Cotton, logs, ore and grain came by rail. Gilbert was eventually the home to a repair shop for the railroad, which ceased operation in 1946. While the tracks were removed and sold as scrap, there are still signs of the railroad where the old concrete supports crossed the Buffalo River. The former rail bed is now a hiking route along the river.

“Today Gilbert contains a few homes, guesthouses and cabins for rent. The Gilbert General Store is still in operation, providing supplies and hunting and fishing licenses. The Riverside Kitchen and Gilbert Café serve diners in the area. Remnants of old homesteads provide a hint of its past.”

Gilbert at one time had four stores, two hotels, three doctors and several sawmills. The 2010 census listed 28 residents.

Writing years ago for National Geographic, Craig Ogilvie said of the Gilbert General Store: “The original mercantile flavor remains unchanged despite the passing years. Everything from buttons and axe handles to crackers and cheese are stocked in the homemade shelves and long glass display cases. … Until 1979, the store had been a part of the Mays-Baker families. Until the 1980s, a corner of the store served as the post office.”

As far as Gilbert being the coldest spot in the state, the temperature is said to have dropped to a minus 24 degrees there one morning during the winter of 1939-40. Then there was the day in April 1969 when it was below freezing in the morning and 90 degrees by that afternoon.

Back on the main highway, a stop for smoked bacon and ham at Coursey’s and a cinnamon roll at Ferguson’s is required.

Michael Stern, the famed “Roadfood” writer, had this to say about Coursey’s back in late 2008: “Coursey’s is a 55-year-old ham house in the Ozarks of north Arkansas. Mrs. Paula Hale, whose father started the business, told us that it began as a dirt-floored cabin (which is still standing outside the new, modern display room).

“‘My father hung each ham from a nail in the wall and wrapped it in a dry-goods box,’ she recalled.

“Coursey’s meats are now smoked in stainless steel facilities and the wooden cabin out front is only a reminder of days gone by. Now run by a third generation of the same family, the roadside shop maintains its country charm. We spent an educational half-hour consulting with Mrs. Hale and her kids about how to best get a ham and a couple of pounds of bacon shipped to us during a summer heat wave (we finally decided to wait until cooler weather), and we discussed the fine points of making tasty red-eye gravy.

“Mrs. Hale clued us in to the joy of a good ham hock, which should never be thrown away once the ham has been eaten. It makes the perfect pot companion for long-cooked greens or beans. And she reminded us that when we fried Coursey’s delicious bacon — made from corn-fed hogs and slow-cured over burning green hickory logs — we should save the drippings to season our hominy or cabbage.

“Coursey’s is primarily a mail-order and takeout business, with scarlet hams hanging on a rack in cloth bags, flavoring the air with their hickory perfume; an assortment of jerkies in jars; and shelves of interesting local jellies, sorghum and honey for sale. Coursey’s has a small counter in the back where you can have a sandwich made of ham, turkey or peppered beef. There is nothing fancy here. Just meat (cheese optional) on supermarket bread. But oh what good meat. It is lean, sweet and tender with an alluring wood-smoke bouquet but none of the pungency of salt-cured country ham.”

The next town headed north is St. Joe, where the 1902 depot (a stop on the Missouri & North Arkansas, which ran from Joplin to Helena) was restored in 2009 to serve as a museum and information center.

There once was lead and zinc mining in the St. Joe-Pindall area. Pindall was a railroad stop first known as Kilburn Switch.

“In the early 1920s, a colony of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) from Illinois and other states settled in the Gilbert area,” James Johnston writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “The failure of the M&NA after World War II and the decline of the economy forced their Bible college to move to Joplin and the area to lose population. The 1972 designation of the Buffalo as a national river left Gilbert as the only private property on the river, and it has prospered. The communities of Snowball and Witts Springs were once commercial centers, but improved transportation in the 1950s sent business to Marshall, and Snowball’s school and post office closed in the 1960s.”

Witts Springs consolidated with Marshall in 2004.

The Legislature first established Searcy County in November 1835, carving it from western Izard County. The original Searcy County also included parts of what are now Marion, Boone, Baxter and Stone counties.

The first Searcy County’s name was changed to Marion County in late 1836 in honor of Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. A new Searcy County was created by the Legislature in 1838 from the southern part of Marion County. Lebanon on Bear Creek was the county seat until it was moved to Burrowsville (now Marshall), named for slave-owning secessionist politician Napoleon Bonaparte Burrow.

At the state’s secession convention in Little Rock in May 1861, Searcy County’s representative was one of just five to vote against secession. In the 20th century, at times when there were not many Republicans elsewhere in Arkansas, there always was a contingent of ancestral Republicans in Searcy County. These were people whose family roots in the party went back to the Civil War.

At the outset of the Civil War, a group known as the Peace Society was formed in the Ozarks to oppose the Confederacy.

“More Peace Society members are identified in Searcy County than any other county,” Johnston writes. “The organization was betrayed on Nov. 17, 1861, in Van Buren County by John Holmes, and the discovery of the society spread rapidly. Investigations of the Peace Society, first in Fulton County and then in Izard County, led to its discovery in 1861 on the Izard-Searcy County line.”

Eighty-seven men were marched in chains to Little Rock, forced to join the Confederate Army and shipped to Bowling Green, Ky. Some of those men later would escape and return to Searcy County. There were six Union companies made up of men from Searcy County.

“After the war, Union veterans took control of the county, and they and their descendants have held Searcy County for the Republican Party ever since,” Johnston writes. “By 1870, the county was attracting families from the defeated Southern states. In addition to new homesteads, the lead and zinc mining boom beginning in the mid-1890s brought money and people to St. Joe and northern Searcy County.”

The Great Depression hit Searcy County hard. After World War II, Marshall attracted a shirt factory and there was a push to make the county a center for growing strawberries. The inability to find pickers killed the strawberry industry by the 1960s. Civic leaders in the county felt dams on the Buffalo River and its tributaries would help the economy. The nationally publicized battle to keep the Buffalo a free-flowing stream went on for years. That epic environmental battle has been written about on this blog before.

In addition to chocolate rolls, a Searcy County claim to fame is that it leads the state in walnut production. It ranks 11th among the 75 counties in milk and dairy production, 12th in acres of land used to grow berries, 13th in turkey production, 14th in goat production, 22nd in hogs, 25th in cattle and 29th in horses.

There are hundreds of black bears in the county and some of the elk wander down from Newton County.

Chocolate rolls or no chocolate rolls, it remains a wonderful place for those of us who love rural Arkansas.

 

Elk of the Ozarks

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

Elk were native to Arkansas, though the eastern subspecies that roamed the region already was dwindling by the time Arkansas became a state in 1836.

Still, there are reminders that Arkansas once had been a state where the elk roamed freely.

One of the oldest banks in the state was Elk Horn Bank & Trust Co. in my hometown of Arkadelphia (whose name was changed to Southern Bancorp several years ago).

The Elkhorn Tavern was a landmark during the Civil War battle at Pea Ridge.

In the late 1700s, elk could be found as far south and east as northern Alabama. Too much hunting and the loss of habitat meant the end of the Arkansas elk herd by the 1840s. The eastern elk, in fact, is now extinct.

The U.S. Forest Service brought Rocky Mountain elk to Franklin County’s Black Mountain Refuge in 1933. Three bulls and eight cows were transported from the Wichita National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. These elk were themselves transplants, having come to Oklahoma from Wyoming. The Arkansas herd increased to almost 200 elk by the 1950s and then disappeared.

“No one knows for sure what caused these elk to disappear,” says Mike Cartwright, the retired elk program coordinator for the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission.

Poaching, no doubt, played a part in the herd’s demise.

During his first year in the governor’s office in 1979, Gov. Bill Clinton named Hilary Jones of Newton County to the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. Jones, an avid elk hunter who made regular trips to Colorado, thought elk could survive on the public lands that make up the National Park Service’s Buffalo National River and the AGFC’s Gene Rush Wildlife Management Area.

In 1981, the AGFC entered into an agreement with the state of Colorado to trade elk for Arkansas fish. Jones recruited friends to take trailers to Colorado and bring the Rocky Mountain elk east. In the years that followed, seven elk from Nebraska’s Sand Hills also were brought in.

The first elk calf was born in Arkansas in 1982.

In the winter of 1985, local volunteers raced winter storms to bring back seven loads containing 74 additional elk. Gooseneck cattle trailers were lined with plywood sheets.

“They’re mean, wild and stout,” volunteer Bobby Harrison of Jasper said of the Rocky Mountain elk. “If there was a small crack they could see through, they’d go for it. At night, the car lights coming up behind us and shining through the cracks really startled them.”

Colorado authorities built corrals of heavy-duty steel pipe frames and nylon mesh fencing to trap the elk. During the next two decades, the Arkansas herd would grow to almost 500. Now the bugle call of bull elk can be heard in the fall. The antlers of these magnificent bull elk can spread from three to five feet with five to seven points on each side.

The AGFC partnered with the National Park Service, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and local landowners on the restoration project. It has never been easy as many landowners have complained about the elk depleting pastures meant for cattle, knocking down fences, etc.

The gestation period for elk is 249 to 269 days. Calves are born in May and June.

Hilary Jones had predicted in the early 1980s, “We’ll have a hunt in 20 years or less.”

Jones died shortly before that first hunt in 1998.

“When you think of elk, you can’t help but think of Hilary Jones,” Cartwright says. “He had the vision.”

My friend Joe Mosby, who’s among the best outdoors and sports writers this state has ever produced, wrote in a piece last year for Arkansas Wildlife: “No one saw the tourism impact coming. Elk viewing has become very popular and accounts for a multitude of visitors to mountainous Newton County and the surrounding area in northwestern Arkansas.”

Mosby adds that there are times when Arkansas Highways 21 and 43 are “choked with mini traffic jams, and parking is limited. Some elk viewers park partially on the pavement and others stop on the side of the road opposite the fields and dash across to the fence to get closer looks. They are in danger from log trucks and other traffic on the road.”

Mike Mills of the Buffalo Outdoor Center told Mosby: “Some local people don’t like the parking on the side of the highway to view the elk. On some Friday and Saturday nights in the fall, there will be 60 to 70 cars lined up in Boxley Valley watching or waiting for elk. There needs to be viewing area parking established at both ends of the valley at the most popular spots.”

Mills calls elk viewing “a major fall activity” for his customers and says he has people who “come from all over to see elk and stay in our cabins.”

Hundreds of Arkansans apply each year for the handful of elk hunting permits, which were awarded during last week’s Buffalo River Elk Festival at Jasper.

The best times to see the elk are just after sunrise and just before dark.

The elk brought to Arkansas in the early 1980s were released in the Pruitt area near Arkansas Highway 7. Much of the herd migrated through the years to the Boxley Valley near Ponca.

The Boxley Valley generally is closed to elk hunting, but hunting opportunities can be found downstream in the Gene Rush Wildlife Management Area. The management area extends from Newton County east into Searcy County. It originally was known as the Buffalo River Wildlife Management Area but later was named in honor of Gene Rush, a Newton County native who worked for the AGFC for many years, eventually heading its wildlife management division.

The original wildlife management area was assembled in two parts. The first tract of 9,198 acres was purchased from 1966-73 from Paul Meers, the Eleven Sixty-Six Corp. and smaller landowners. The second tract of 7,248 acres was purchased from 1978-80 from the Sutton family.

In 2008, 2,880 acres in the Richland Valley were added to the wildlife management area. Sonny Varnell of St. Paul in Madison County, who served on the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission from 2003-08, pushed for the acquisition of the additional land, which is southwest of St. Joe and south of the Woolum access on the Buffalo River. It’s now known as the Richland Valley Sonny Varnell Elk Conservation Area.

“Hunters and observers believe the elk have changed over time,” Mosby wrote. “They say the animals are more wary, that they’ve learned about gunshots. They’ve changed where they hang out, too.

“Arkansas’ elk management, including the hunts, has been studied by other states. Kentucky reintroduced elk in 1997 in a large area of abandoned coal mines, and the herd has grown to about 11,000, the largest population among states where elk have returned.

“Michigan and Pennsylvania brought back elk about 90 years ago. More recently, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Carolina have reintroduced elk. Missouri, Ohio, Alabama and Virginia are in the beginning stages of elk programs.”

In 2002, the AGFC established the Ponca Elk Education Center just across the road from the Buffalo Outdoor Center headquarters. Housed in a log building, the center has displays of elk and other wildlife, photographs, a meeting room and a gift shop. There are also picnic tables and restrooms.

The center is open from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. each Thursday through Monday. During October, the prime month for viewing elk, the center is open seven days a week.

On Highway 7 in Jasper, just north of the bridge over the Little Buffalo River, the Hilary Jones Wildlife Museum and Elk Information Center is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. seven days a week. This facility also has a gift shop.

During my visit to Newton County last weekend, I was in several places where the wonderful work of wildlife photographer Michael Dougherty of Compton was on display. He offers this advice for viewing and photographing elk: “The very best way to make sure you don’t miss great opportunities to see the elk is to drive the entire length of the Boxley Valley surveying the fields before settling on a particular herd location. At peak periods, you might find four different herds in the valley, but only one will be the best viewing and photo opportunity.

“The same applies to bull fights during the rut. I guarantee that if you don’t check out the whole valley first, you will miss out because sometimes the scene of a lifetime will be in the field next to the one you decided park at. Trust me on this. I have the shirt. … I generally make this survey before there is enough light to take pictures. Keep moving and don’t stop until you are ready to start shooting. If you stop before you intend to shoot, you may startle the animals and an opportunity will be lost. Believe me on this point.

“Drive slowly. Forty miles per hour is enough. You don’t want to hit an elk. If the elk are pooled beside the road, they are getting ready to cross. Don’t expect elk to be any more rational than whitetail deer. At 700 pounds, they pack a lot of punch. Hitting a live animal is a terrible experience. Going slow is much safer for the elk and you.

“Don’t expect the elk to move too much from day to day, but they might. If you are looking for bull fights, they can be anywhere and just about anytime during the rut, peaking in September and October. I have photographed elk fights in November and December.”

The Arkansas elk now range over 225,000 acres. In addition to Newton and Searcy counties, elk have been reported through the years in Washington, Carroll, Boone, Marion, Stone, Conway, Pope, Van Buren and even Faulkner counties.

Biologists in helicopters count elk each year. In 1994, the AGFC initiated a thermal infrared sensing project to provide more information on elk numbers and distribution.

Efforts to improve elk habitat in the Ozarks have included prescribed burns and the establishment of native grass openings. Unlike the 1950s, this Arkansas elk herd appears here to stay.

Elk Festival time in Jasper

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

The invitation proved irresistible.

Rhonda Watkins of Jasper asked me to judge the homemade pie competition to be held in conjunction with the 15th annual Buffalo River Elk Festival. The competition would take place on a Saturday morning with proceeds from the auction of the pies going to the Single Parent Scholarship Fund.

Coupled with a chance to spend the weekend at businessman Bubba Lloyd’s luxurious private retreat, the Black Bear Lodge, this was an invitation that went on my calendar many weeks ago.

I pulled off Interstate 40 in Russellville late Friday afternoon and began the climb north on Arkansas Highway 7 — past the empty buildings of what once was the tourist trap Booger Hollow, past the Rotary Ann overlook operated by the U.S. Forest Service and past the Cliff House just south of Jasper (which has a small inn, a restaurant and a gift shop), its parking lot crowded with diners.

As I rolled down the mountain into downtown Jasper, it was clear that the town was filled with visitors. Craftsmen and other vendors crowded the grounds of the Newton County Courthouse and music could be heard playing in the background.

With 8,330 residents in the 2010 census (down from 12,538 in 1900), Newton County is among the state’s smallest counties in terms of population.

Only six counties have fewer residents.

Three are in the pine woods of south Arkansas — Calhoun County with 5,368; Lafayette County with 7,645; and Dallas County with 8,116.

Two are in the Delta — Woodruff County with 7,260 and Monroe County with 8,149.

One is next door to Newton County in the Ozarks — Searcy County with 8,195.

Newton County is one of the state’s most isolated, scenic places. The area was made part of Carroll County in 1833, and white settlers began to move in as the Indians moved out. Jasper appeared on maps as early as 1840, though the city wasn’t incorporated until 1896.

The Legislature created Newton County in December 1842, naming it after Thomas Willoughby Newton, a U.S. marshal who was elected to Congress after the resignation of Archibald Yell. Jasper became the county seat in 1843.

In the 1860 census, there were just 24 slaves in the county (farming was limited to fields along the Buffalo and Little Buffalo rivers), and Union sentiment was strong, even after Arkansas joined the Confederacy.

James Vanderpool of Jasper was a Union hero. Meanwhile, former Newton County sheriff John Cecil was a guerrilla leader for the Confederacy. Cecil was known for his twin pearl-handled pistols.

“Farming changed little in the county after Reconstruction,” C.J. Miller writes for the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “Smaller farms were prevalent, while larger farms existed near the rivers. Potatoes, apples and peaches supplemented the main crop, corn. Cotton provided the cash crop for the Buffalo River valley. Lumber camps developed.

“Whether for added income or personal use, the production of moonshine made use of the surplus corn. A legend was born as ‘Beaver Jim’ Villines became known for his trapping ability. Visitors went to Marble Falls and Tom Thumb Spring for the water’s healing power.”

Villines remains a common name in the county. Yes, Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines comes from that stock of hearty mountain settlers.

Oak was harvested for stave bolts, and cedar was harvested for pencils. There was even zinc and lead mining in the early 1900s. Ponca, in fact, was established on land owned by Ponca City Mining Co. of Oklahoma.

Still, change was slow to come to Newton County. Highway 7 between Jasper and Harrison wasn’t paved until 1951. The current courthouse was built in 1942 as a Works Progress Administration project.

There were high hopes when the Dogpatch USA amusement park opened in 1968, but the isolated location resulted in the park’s ultimate demise. It closed for good in 1993. Its ruins can still be seen along Highway 7 north of Jasper.

The Buffalo became the country’s first national river on March 1, 1972. The signing of the bill by President Nixon followed decades of sometimes bitter debates and political battles.

The state earlier had operated two parks along the river, Buffalo River State Park (established in 1938 as a Civilian Conservation Corps project) and Lost Valley State Park (established in 1966).

Following congressional passage of the Flood Control Act of 1938, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers identified two sites for potential dams on the Buffalo — one near its mouth with the White River and one just upstream from Gilbert in Searcy County.

The pro-dam Buffalo River Improvement Association was led by James Tudor of Marshall in Searcy County. The anti-dam Ozark Society was led by Dr. Neil Compton of Bentonville. The battle for the Buffalo even received national media attention when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas floated the river.

In December 1965, Gov. Orval Faubus, a Madison County native, informed the Corps that he wouldn’t support a dam on the river. Efforts to keep the river flowing freely received yet another boost when Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison defeated Democratic Rep. James Trimble in 1966. Trimble had supported damming the Buffalo.

Hammerschmidt joined forces with the state’s two Democratic senators, John L. McClellan and J. William Fulbright, in pushing to make the Buffalo a national river.

A park superintendent, a chief ranger and a secretary set up temporary headquarters in Harrison in 1972. National Park Service staff members eventually were divided into three management districts. For years, federal employees have dealt with residents still angry about land they had to sell to the government.

The Buffalo National River, though, has become a tremendous success from a tourism standpoint with more than 800,000 visitors per year to its 94,293 acres. As Jimmy Driftwood sang, the Buffalo is “Arkansas’ gift to the nation, America’s gift to the world.”

Other attractions have developed in the county. From the spacious back deck of Bubba’s Black Bear Lodge, I can look down on the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, which draws visitors from across the country for its horseback riding, outdoor cookouts, rock climbing and other activities.

The owners of this well-known dude ranch, Barry and Amy Johnson, met when they were working at a Wyoming ranch while enrolled at Brigham Young University. The involvement of the couple’s four children — Cameron, Cody, Sierra and Creed — make it a true family operation.

In addition to its superb rock climbing opportunities, Horseshoe Canyon is adding one of the longest zip lines in the country.

Bubba and I were in downtown Jasper by 9 a.m. Saturday for the pie judging. I took bites of 24 homemade pies — blackberry, blueberry, pecan, plum, lemon, chocolate, apple, egg custard, strawberry, peach and more. It was tough work, but somebody had to do it.

After the pie auction, we headed west out of Jasper on Arkansas Highway 74. We stopped briefly at the commuity of Low Gap to visit with noted chef Nick Bottini, who now operates the Low Gap Cafe in an old general store along with his wife Marie. Bottini once operated an upscale restaurant in Harrison. He’s open at Low Gap from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. each Wednesday and Thursday, from 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. each Friday and Saturday and from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. each Sunday.

We took a right on Arkansas Highway 43 and stepped into the beautiful new headquarters of Mike Mills’ Buffalo Outdoor Center at Ponca. Mills, who has long been among the state’s leading tourism entrepreneurs, offers everything from cabins to a lodge for family reunions and corporate retreats. Visitors can also book canoe trips and visit the zip line.

In May, Mills added what’s known as the Big Ol’ Swing. Built with 65-foot pine poles outfitted with a cable system, riders are secured into a harness and then launched.

Mills, a Hendrix College graduate, served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1969-71. He managed the Lost Valley Lodge in Ponca from 1974-76 and in 1976 began Buffalo Outdoor Center as a canoe rental operation on the upper Buffalo.

After leaving Ponca, we took a left onto Arkansas Highway 103 and followed it into Carroll County, where the road intersects with U.S. Highway 412 at Osage. In a building that was constructed in 1901, Newt Lale continues to operate Osage Clayworks. Lale has been a potter for three decades, and his pottery is in demand across the Ozarks.

We then drove east on Highway 412 for a late lunch at the Top Rock in Alpena. The evening was spent back on the Jasper square for the final night of the Elk Festival, including the much-anticipated 7 p.m. drawing by Arkansas Game & Fish Commission officials for elk hunting permits.

I visited with a college buddy from Ouachita Baptist University, Rodney Slinkard. The guy we called Slink was a heck of a college football player three decades ago. He now lives on the Buffalo River at Gilbert, where he paints Ozark Mountain scenes. Rodney had his art for sale both days of the festival.

The Ozark Cafe has been on the Jasper square since 1909. The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. Last year, the website www.newyork.grubstreet.com did a feature called “50 State Dinners: Food Treks Worth Taking This Summer.” The Ozark was picked as the location in Arkansas.

On Saturday, the Ozark closed at 5 p.m. to allow its employees a chance to enjoy the Elk Festival. So we wandered down the street to the Boardwalk Cafe, known for using buffalo, elk, locally grown produce and locally baked bread.

Owners Joseph and Janet Morgan also operate the adjacent Arkansas House, which has two suites on the ground floor and three rooms on the second floor. The dinner menu Saturday at the Boardwalk featured a number of elk dishes. I had elk gumbo with locally grown okra. It was excellent.

The Buffalo River Elk Festival concluded with fireworks over the Jasper square, beginning at 10 p.m. Saturday. By then, I had returned to Bubba’s Black Bear Lodge and was prepared to turn in for the night. Full of homemade pie and elk, I slept well after a long day.

Sunday dawned clear and hot. Looking down through the mountains toward Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, I enjoyed ham, eggs and biscuits and coffee before heading south on Highway 7.

I have no doubt that Newton County will beckon again.