State Welcome Centers rooted in Cooper effort
Bella Vista’s history goes back to 1915 when the Rev. and Mrs. William Baker of Bentonville began creating the lake they named Bella Vista. Highway 71 was then a two-lane gravel road, called Highway 100, which was eventually paved in 1929.
John Cooper Sr. bought Lake Bella Vista in the early 1960s and opened Bella Vista Village in 1965. Before that, though, he is credited with starting the concept of tourist information centers in Arkansas at his first retirement village in northeast Arkansas, Cherokee Village. He had seen how successful those centers were in Virginia and decided to start one himself.
Cooper opened that first center in 1963 at Cherokee Village, stocking it with samples of things made in Arkansas, along with leaflets from a variety of Arkansas enterprises. It was not especially a Cooper promotion, but was aimed at providing information about Arkansas in general, and it became the first Tourist Information Center in the state.
When Cooper started his second retirement village of Bella Vista, the first land he purchased was Swan Lake and Café on Highway 71. It was located about where the entrance to the Village Wastewater Plant is now (in fact the motel’s circle drive is still visible). The motel was converted into offices for Cooper engineers, and the café was converted into a Tourist Information Center in 1965. Kathryn Barnett, who lived with her husband Jess in the brick house just east of the gas station at the Missouri border, was hired to operate the center.
In 1966, Cooper donated land nearer the Missouri state line to the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism for another center, and the state opened it on July 29, 1967, as the first one operated by the state. Margaret Howard was hired as the manager.
That center was moved four miles south to its current location on Highway 71 across from Lake Bella Vista in 1986 to get it away from the area of the former landfill and the wastewater plant, for which expansion was planned. The Swan Lake Motel and Café complex was burned in a Fire Department training fire in March 1990.
Following Margaret Howard’s retirement in 1999, after more than 30 years of service, she was succeeded by Phyllis Spradlin, who in turn retired in 2011.
Later in 2011, William Armacost was promoted from assistant manager to manager and still holds that position. Terra Wilburn is now the assistant manager, and Lamarise Carrier is the travel consultant. Two employees of the state Department of Transportation maintain the grounds.
There are two historic markers at the Center. One is the Blue Star Memorial marker. The National Garden Clubs Inc., started a program in 1945 after World War II to pay tribute to the U.S. armed forces by putting up these markers across the U.S. The first one in Bella Vista was dedicated on May 20, 1980, and the Bella Vista Garden Club replaced it with a new one on Nov. 11, 2000.
In the early 1980s, the Bella Vista Historical Society erected several markers around Bella Vista at historic sites. One stands at the south end of the Center’s picnic area. It states that the No. 4 tee for the Linebarger Golf Course stood 500 feet south of that location (the tee was just past the Linebarger log house that is now the Artist Retreat Center). That golf course remained in use into the 1940s.
Several years ago, the state began a replacement program for its centers, and changed the name from Tourist Information Center to Welcome Center. When the Bella Vista bypass is completed with four lanes to Missouri, it is planned that a new Welcome Center will be built along there, near the Missouri state line.
Information for this column was provided by William Armacost and past issues of The Weekly Vista newspaper.