So many people were trespassing on the old Dogpatch theme park property in Newton County that the new owner decided to open it this weekend for public tours.
"In all honesty, I allowed the public to bully me to showing them the park," said Charles "Bud" Pelsor, who bought the 400-acre park for $2 million in August. "They were coming under the gate, over the gate, through the gate. I caved to public pressure is what it is."
Pelsor, a "spill-proof" dog-bowl magnate, plans to spend between $6 million and $8 million to make the former theme park an "ecotourism" destination. It'll be called The Village at Dogpatch, he said.
He said he plans to recommission a trout farm and mill on the property and clean up Mill Creek so he can re-establish Arkansas' pearl-bearing Margaritifera mussels. There will be displays of painters, sculptors and woodcarvers in addition to a farrier and carriage rides.
"It will not be the Dogpatch theme park," Pelsor said. "It will not be the Dogpatch thrill park. The theme is gone, and the thrill is gone. It will be an ecotourism theme park."
There will be plenty of things to attract people to the park, including country cooking and fine-dining restaurants, Pelsor said.
Since he bought the property, Pelsor has been clearing the underbrush and started a fire in the fireplace of the cabin built for Mammy and Pappy Yokum. They were the fictional parents of Li'l Abner in Al Capp's comic strip by the same name.
Dogpatch USA was a theme park from 1968-1993 based on Capp's comic strip, which was published in more than 700 newspapers across the country. The new ecotourism park will have a museum dedicated to Dogpatch USA memorabilia, Pelsor said.
He said Tuesday that more than 1,000 people had signed up to see the park this weekend. The "River Walk tours" are scheduled from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. If it rains, the tours will be postponed until Dec. 13-14.
The tours are free, and photography is permitted.
Pelsor said there's no limit on the number of people he will allow in the tours, but those who want to tour the property should fill out a waiver-of-liability form that can be found on the Dogpatch USA Facebook page.
Children are welcome, Pelsor said. Parents can add children's names at the bottom of the waiver forms.
Pelsor said he may have one tour day each month as work continues on the park. It's easier to do it that way than to show people around whenever they show up or have to worry about someone getting injured while trespassing, he said.
The purpose of the tour is to provide information to the public and acquire input from people who are interested in the park.
"The plan is dynamic," Pelsor said. "Such is life. We exist in a state of flux. If a couple thousand people come, I can't wait to hear a couple of thousand comments. And I promise, 'there's gold in them-thar comments.'"
Pelsor said he purchased a former ski lodge at nearby Marble Falls and has moved in. A native of Indiana, he has family roots in the Pope County town of Pelsor.
At their zenith, Dogpatch and Marble Falls encompassed about 863 acres, Pelsor said. But parts of the park had been sold before his purchase in August. Pelsor bought the main part of the old theme park, which included about 25 buildings.
Pelsor said he visited Dogpatch when he was a child, around 1970, and was impressed with what he saw. He made several more visits to the park.
He initially planned to broker the sale of Dogpatch to someone else, but then he said he realized his emotional connection to the park. He decided he was probably the best person to take on a project there.
Pelsor owns Great American Spillproof Products Inc., which manufactures "spill-proof" pet bowls.
Pelsor's partners in the Dogpatch project are James and Susan Robertson of Newbury Park, Calif. James Robertson is the chief financial officer of Pelsor's company.
Harrison Mayor Jeff Crockett said a new park at the old Dogpatch site would help the whole area economically. Harrison is about 13 miles north of Marble Falls.
"If it gets off the ground the way he proposes, I think it will be a good thing," Crockett said. "I think it'll draw some tourism in. I think it'll probably draw an older crowd with recollections of visiting Dogpatch when it was open before."
Crockett said that in its heyday Dogpatch USA drew several hundred thousand visitors a year, mainly from cities such as Dallas and St. Louis. But other theme parks, such as those built by Six Flags Entertainment Corp., opened closer to those cities, and travel to Dogpatch waned.
Also, by the 1960s, it was a different time in America, Crockett said.
"People lost touch with cartoons," he said.
Trespassing at the old theme park site has been a problem for years, Crockett said.
"Trespassing down there has been tremendous because people just want to go in there and reminisce," he said. "I wish him the best. I hope he can make it work."
NW News on 12/03/2014