Not long after Silver Dollar City got its start in Branson, Arkansas got its own theme park about half an hour away called Dogpatch USA. It was based on the Li'l Abner cartoon strip. Those of a certain age will remember. That is, they will remember the cartoon strip. If they are of a certain age, and of a certain latitude, they will remember the theme park, too.
The park closed in 1993, and though attempts were made to revive the property, that dream has died once again as the current owner of the abandoned property faces foreclosure. Here's more from the paper:
"Bud Pelsor, 69, the inventor of a spill-proof dog bowl, came to Arkansas in 2014 to convert the abandoned Dogpatch theme park into an 'ecotourism village.' But things didn't work out. Last month, Pelsor was served with a foreclosure notice. A lawsuit was filed in Newton County Circuit Court against his company, Great American Spillproof Products, the official owner of the 400-acre Dogpatch property. It was behind on the lease payments and owed more than $922,000 on a $1 million promissory note that was supposed to be paid off in August."
Now Mr. Pelsor is moving back to his home state of Indiana. And once again, it seems like this grand dream of resurrecting Dogpatch is out of reach. Every time we drive by on Scenic Highway 7, we have to rubberneck to see the roofless shacks, the worn slide, the old bridges, the little waterfalls and ponds. Somebody said there is a trout farm there, or was.
We can almost see the ghosts of costumed cartoon characters walking around, like they did in the old days, talking to awe-inspired children and generally being either beautiful or buffoonish, like the cartoon itself. It's as if an Arkie Disney World keeps going backrupt. How can Dogpatch end? One might just as soon ask how Mary Tyler Moore or Gene Wilder or Gilda Radner can end.
Maybe it's simply not meant to be, this Dogpatch. While Scenic Highway 7 is a popular road for bikers (and those confounded log trucks), a theme park in the heart of the Ozarks seems pricey. That is, it would be pricey to keep up. Reports say 300,000 people visited the park in 1968, but you'd be hard pressed to get that many today. Not without millions of dollars in upgrades. And who has millions to pour into a broke, and broken, theme park? If you know the answer, contact Bud Pelsor & Co. They've been trying to answer that question for years. Many of us have.
While most people who read Mr. Bill Bowden's reporting on Dogpatch were probably focused on yet another resurrection effort falling through, we found ourselves reading the caption under the picture a couple times.
"Bud Pelsor stands with Dia, his pet wolf, in an undated photograph . . . ."
The man owns a wolf! Seems like that's worth a profile in and of itself. Can we get a few hundred words on Dia?
The article also mentioned that Dogpatch ain't far from what was once an Arkansas ski resort. That seems like an even bigger stretch of a business pitch than resurrecting Dogpatch.
For those of us who remember walking through the park as children, Dogpatch will always hold a special place. Sorta like a kindergartener's Christmas, only hotter. What did the man say? Memories so thick you could brush them away from your face. And there were a lot of memories made in Dogpatch. Three-hundred thousand people is about as many deer hunters who bought hunting licenses in this state last year. That's a crowd of memories.
And now, nobody.
All things must pass, the Book tells us. But something in our childhood wanted to hold on to this one.
Editorial on 12/11/2019