BELLA VISTA — The Linebarger Brothers, who opened the Bella Vista Summer time Resort in 1917, have been struggling to maintain the resort going within the Nineteen Forties, so that they reached out to magazines on the east coast to be included each time articles have been being printed about touring within the Ozarks.
Enjoyable within the Solar journal started publishing in New York with Quantity 1, #1, dated August-September 1946. It was marketed as “The New Intimate Journal of Vacationland.”
It isn’t identified how lengthy that publication survived, however that first situation carried an article titled “Wonderland Cave, Bella Vista, Ark.” The article included an image of the cave, which was opened as an underground nightclub in 1930, and one of many Sundown Lodge, which opened in 1929. The 2½-page article talked about different points of Bella Vista as properly. One paragraph reads, “The local weather is good at Bella Vista. For the previous decade, the common temperature for June, July and August has been 76 levels, recorded by the U.S. Climate Bureau at Bentonville, Arkansas. It’s essential to sleep beneath covers at night time. One other good characteristic of the local weather is that there are not any mosquitos.”
Vacation journal was an American journey journal printed from 1946 to 1977. Initially printed by the Curtis Publishing Firm in Philadelphia, Vacation’s circulation grew to greater than 1 million subscribers at its top. Its August 1951 situation featured a 13-page article titled “The Pleasant Ozarks.” There was no point out of Bella Vista within the textual content of that article, however an artist’s rendering of a band taking part in in Wonderland Cave was included. The caption learn, “Bella Vista, Ark., has a singular night time membership in a spacious limestone cave 500 ft underground.” (That was only a slight exaggeration within the cave homeowners’ publicity, as guests entered the cave by happening a set of stairs after which strolling about 300 ft on a reasonably stage pathway to the dance ground.)
In 1940, Frederick Simpich, who was then assistant editor of the Nationwide Geographic journal printed in Washington, D.C., and Mrs. Simpich have been in Bella Vista, staying for a number of weeks on the Sundown Lodge. The June 25, 1940, situation of the Linebarger Brothers’ newspaper, The Bella Vista Breezes, reported, “Simpich combed the Ozarks seeking materials for a forthcoming article on the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks to be carried by his journal. Accompanying Simpich again to Washington have been a number of photos, with a decidedly Ozark taste, snapped by Miss Lillian Inexperienced, non-public secretary to the Bella Vista administration and candid digital camera artiste, par excellence.”
The July 9, 1940, situation of the Breezes reported that Simpich and B.A. Stewart, photographer for the journal, “arrived in Bella Vista Friday night time to safe needed photos for an article on the Ozark area, scheduled for publication within the Geographic inside a yr. A variety of photographs have been made from the Wonderland Cave’s inside Saturday night time, whereas the dance was in progress.”
Nonetheless, the article did not get printed till the Might 1943, situation of the Nationwide Geographic. It was a protracted article, titled “Land of a Million Smiles,” which ran from web page 589 by way of 623, but it surely incorporates just one sentence about Bella Vista, on web page 612: “On State Street 100, out of Bentonville, is Bella Vista, a well-liked lakeside resort.” The one Bella Vista space image that was included was one of many Hay Bluffs which is positioned simply north of at present’s intersection of U.S. 71 and Wellington Street. It was featured within the Might 19, 2021, situation of the Weekly Vista.
For extra details about the historical past of Bella Vista, go to the Bella Vista Historic Museum at 1885 Bella Vista Manner, close to the intersection of U.S. 71 and Kingsland. Guests are welcome from 1 to five p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Picture courtesy Bella Vista Historic Museum The entrance cowl of the Might 1943 Nationwide Geographic lists the ‘Land of a Million Smiles’ article in regards to the Ozarks.
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