Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Lake Bella Vista witnesses century of change
BELLA VISTA — Rev. William Baker and his wife Mary owned property along Sugar Creek north of Bentonville and, in 1915, they decided to dam up the creek and create a lake for a summer resort.
However, they soon gave up on that idea and, in late 1916, they sold the lake and surrounding property to the Linebarger Brothers, who built a summer resort and opened it in June 1917.
The Linebargers operated the resort until 1952 when they sold it to E. L. Keith, who kept it until 1963 when he sold it to John Cooper Sr., whose company later became Cooper Communities.
In 1996, the Bentonville/ Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce Leadership Class decided as its class project to develop a group of trails for the area. According to the Weekly Vista of July 11, 2001, the group first came up with a plan for bike trails, then established themselves as a nonprofit organization which they named the Trailblazers, after which they began talking with Cooper about gaining access to build a bike trail around Lake Bella Vista, the only lake in Bella Vista not owned and maintained by the Property Owners Association.
Instead of just giving them access, Cooper decided to give them the lake and 70 surrounding acres.
While raising money through donations and grants, the group started trail construction around the lake in August 2000, but it took longer than expected due to the extensive dredging operation required to improve the quality of the lake. The Weekly Vista reported on July 16, 2003, the dredging was nearly complete after three years. Tons of lake sediment were removed at no expense to the group in return for allowing an excavating company to sell the removed material as landfill.
Some of it was used as landfill for a strip of land between the south end of Lake Bella Vista and Benton County 40, on top of which a Walgreen’s Pharmacy and several other buildings were later built.
On Sept. 7, 2004, the Village Art Club, which owns the Wishing Spring Gallery, granted property alongside the gallery to be used for a trail, which enabled the Trailblazers to realize its goal of connecting the lake trail with a trail into Bentonville.
At some point in time, the legal description was changed from Wishing “Spring” to Wishing “Springs,” so the trail is now called the Wishing Springs Trail, but the gallery is still the Wishing Spring Gallery, named for the old dairy barn it occupies, the Wishing Spring Dairy, whose original water source was one spring across the road up on the hill.
The Trailblazers reportedly approached the Property Owners Association — this was before the city of Bella Vista existed — about taking over Lake Bella Vista but were turned down, so they asked Bentonville to take it over as a city park, and the lake was annexed into Bentonville on Sept. 25, 2005.
Even though the lake is now part of Bentonville, it is still recognized as the origin of Bella Vista. The Bella Vista Historical Museum held several events in 2015 to celebrate the 100-year anniversary.