Remember the area before Beaver Lake
A few weeks ago, as part of a Saturday afternoon speaker series at Hobbs State Park east of Rogers, Susan Young of Shiloh Museum Springdale gave a talk entitled “Before Beaver Lake.” Since I was born during those times before Beaver Lake, I thought I’d try describing a few of my remembrances about those days and a few reflections on the impact the lake has had.
Beaver Lake has been in existence long enough now that many of our people have come to think of it as a part of our lives which has just always been there. Of course, if you were born in the mid1960s or later, you would not remember a time when there was no Beaver Lake. But for people who were born in the 1950s and earlier, you may well have spent time on White River, perhaps before we even heard that we might have a lake someday. Many of our families have stories and memories of fishing outings on White River, including outings on parts of the river that are now under the deep waters of the lake. My wife Nancy remembers times when she and several of the neighborhood kids were camping out on White River with her dad, Ray Patterson, and Marvin Dean and a few other adults watching over the kids. I think they remember the fun together, and the cooking and eating around the campfires as much as they do the fishing itself.
The White River has always been a great attraction in Northwest Arkansas, even before Beaver Lake. In earlier days there wasn’t the speedboating that is now possible on Beaver Lake, but people who enjoyed boating, canoeing and fishing on the river have always been attracted to the White River. Since we have always been so close to the White River, many people even assume that the White is where our rainwaters go as they run off. That isn’t the case, since our land area drains to the north and west, and eventually into the Elk River running into Oklahoma and the Grand Lake. One has to go farther east, in the Garfield area, before coming into the White River watershed. But that never kept our fisherman and outdoorsmen from utilizing the White River for fishing and boating and camping. For long years, even before the lake, a number of resorts and camping areas could be found along the river. One of those resorts still endures where Hwy. 62 crosses the White River near Beaver Dam.
One of the closest-tohome differences the lake makes for us at Pea Ridge is our water supply. We, and seemingly most of the east Benton County towns, rely on Beaver Lake for our water. Sometimes I am amazed by the extent of our reliance. When I was growing up in the 1940s, nearly everyone I knew had a well which supplied their family’s water. Early on, we relied on an old dug well from the 1800s for water to our house. Our well never produced a great quantity of water, but it was very good water. I think it was about 1950 that Pea Ridge established its city water department, relying at first on a strong well located near the city’s shops on Davis Street. As I recall, a small storage tank was erected near the well site. A few years later a new traditional water tower was built on a section of Watie Street between Van Dorn and Patton streets. We still have that old water tower with its old-time distinctive shape.
Even some of our areas that I have long thought of as rural have come to have city water today. The city’s water lines currently extend northward along Hayden Road all the way to the edge of our farm. We could connect the farm to city water, if we become willing to invest a few thousand dollars to extend the lines farther into the farm property.
Water supply for our towns and homes may not be the first and most obvious benefit we think of from Beaver Lake, but I have the feeling that it is the greatest impact on the development of our area. We could hardly have supported the population growth we have seen in east Benton County and Washington County over the past 50 years without the Beaver Lake water supply. Although Lake Atalanta at one time was able to supply most of Rogers, there would be no way Rogers could exist on that source as a five times bigger town than it was back then. The old Ford Creek water supply for Bentonville would sustain only a smidgen of the water needs of today’s Bentonville/Bella Vista/Centerton area.
Probably more prominent in our thoughts of Beaver Lake will be the benefits it provides for boating, swimming, fam- ily camping, fishing and homes by the lakeside. Those benefits have had considerable draw in bringing people to our area as tourists, and many those tourists have ended up as new residents, many of them moving here as retirees. But the lake’s design benefits extend much beyond those attractions. One of the major purposes of the lake was flood control. This is also true of several other lakes across the state. In the old days the rivers could flood mightily. We in the northwest section usually didn’t see those floods firsthand; they were most prominent and most disastrous in the eastern parts of the state. In our part of Arkansas, the White River was not that big. But just visit the Batesville area, or look farther east to the Bald Knob and Augusta area, or Clarendon and southwards. In east Arkansas, the White River is a mighty river, with flooding taking place almost every year in the wet season. Our Beaver Lake, Table Rock Lake and Greers Ferry Lake are all part of a great floodwater management system for Arkansas.
••• Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.