Roadside attractions

I’ve reached the top of Mount Gayler during my trip south on U.S. 71. I pull to the side of the road, and the memories of stops here with my parents decades ago come flooding back.

The observation tower that I would climb with my father (while my mother stayed in the gift shop below) is fenced off. Something called the Rockin’ J Ranch has posted “no trespassing” signs. The rock building that housed the gift shop also has “no trespassing” signs on it.

Across the highway, the stone building that long housed the Burns Gables Restaurant is also empty. It’s for sale, according to the sign.

A man on a four-wheeler approaches. I tell him I’m writing a newspaper story about taking Highway 71 rather than Interstate 49 from Fayetteville to Alma.

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll introduce you to the man who owns this,” he says of the tower and the adjacent building. I learn that the “J” in Rockin’ J belongs to Bill Jenkins of Fort Smith, the president of an oil and gas exploration company known as Wytex Production Corp. Jenkins is mowing grass less than a mile north on this sunny spring day and is more than happy to speak about Mount Gayler.

“This has always been a special place up here,” he says. “They say it’s about seven degrees cooler than it is down in the Arkansas River Valley.”

Jenkins shares his memories of coming up the mountain with family members when he was a boy in order to have meals at Burns Gables. He especially remembers the huckleberry pie. The restaurant opened in 1937. There were also cabins and a gift shop. The large building burned in 1952 and was replaced by the smaller structure that still stands.

An old postcard for Burns Gables described it this way: “One of the most beautiful places of its kind in the Ozarks. Located on top of the Ozarks, an elevation of 2,253 feet. Known for good Southern vittles, modern rooms and the largest novelty shop in the Ozarks. A place for a mother, sister or sweetheart. Once you stop at this magnificent place, it will always remain in your memory.”

On the other side of Highway 71, the Bellis family did business. In an October 2010 story for the Washington County Observer, Velda Brotherton wrote: “Edward A. Bellis Sr., his wife and their son Ed Jr. came to the mountain from Fort Worth after they lost everything in the crash of 1929. Edward bought five acres from R.D. Gayler, who had homesteaded the mountaintop south of Winslow so many years earlier. The Bellis family lived in the back of a pickup truck and a tent while they built the rock buildings and opened businesses that would grace the mountain for more than 60 years. They named the establishment after the Gaylers, who had been there since the mid-1800s.

“After they came to Arkansas, Edward Sr., a bookkeeper by trade, laid the rocks following the plans of his wife until there was a two-story service station, a small house behind the gift shop, an icehouse, and rocked-up spaces for a multitude of flowers. Over the service station was an apartment in which Ed Jr. would live with his wife Sue. The couple had four daughters and a son they named Edward III. One of their daughters, Ruby Jo Bellis, was the only descendant who wanted the property.”

In a feature on the roadside attractions that once could be found along highways in the Ozarks, the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History at Springdale noted that “auto camping was popular in the 1920s as adventure-loving tourists began to enjoy the great outdoors. Bungalow camps soon sprang up, featuring cabins with restaurant and laundry services. Motor courts followed, offering protection for cars. A traveler could stop and stay on a whim without having to wear appropriate dress for a hotel. … Restaurants featured home cooking. At Burns Gables on Mount Gayler, the Burns family served their own homegrown food including eggs and sausage, huckleberry pie and fried chicken dinners.”

A wooden tower with four decks was built in 1933 with a sign advertising Marathon Gas on top. The steel tower that’s still on Mount Gayler was constructed in 1939. A small train once took visitors on rides around a lake fed by seven springs. Ruby Jo Bellis eventually sold the property and moved to Fayetteville.

When Bellis was still living there in late 2010, Brotherton wrote: “She sleeps in the room where she slept as a child. Her bed is under the window she once looked out of as a young girl. But today Ruby Jo Bellis doesn’t see what she saw then. Traffic no longer rumbles along Highway 71. Drivers no longer stop to buy gas, and their families don’t tour the gift shop or eat in the restaurant at Mount Gayler. She is the third generation of her family to live at this once-popular tourist attraction. And she lives there alone since the tragic death of her son in 2009. … Ruby said she will remain there as long as she can pay the taxes and keep the weeds pulled.”

Bellis said that members of the 1800s family who remained on the mountain spelled their name Gayler. Those who left changed it to Gaylor. You’ll see the mountain spelled both ways, but Gayler is correct.

When what’s now Interstate 49 was being planned, Ed Bellis Jr. said, “It will ruin our business, but we can’t stand in the way of progress.” He was killed in an automobile accident on Highway 71 in 1985. Jenkins began buying land atop the mountain in 2006.

“Our hope is to preserve this area and help bring it back to life,” the Fort Smith businessman says. “What’s sad is the fact that so many of the buildings are just beyond repair. I had long wanted to retire up here, but I decided not to wait until retirement.”

I learn that the man on the four-wheeler is Bart Petray, who in 2012 began raising grass-fed cattle at his nearby Top O’ The Mount Farm. The grass-fed beef is sold in Fort Smith and Springdale. Jenkins also tried his hand at raising grass-fed cattle.

Now Jenkins and Petray are hoping to reopen the old gift shop under the tower. They want to sell hamburgers and hot dogs to the motorcycle riders who still travel Highway 71. They might also have a farmers’ cooperative that will sell grass-fed beef and locally raised fruits and vegetables.

If they have their way, Mount Gayler will be reborn as a tourist attraction. Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.