Before Silver Dollar City, there was Dogpatch USA, the beloved theme park that was created based off a comic strip by Al Capp featuring characters Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae, as well as others. The park will soon shed its hillbilly roots in favor of a more natural approach to a theme park.
The park was recently purchased by Bud Pelsor and his business associate James Robertson on Aug. 13, 2014. Pelsor is the inventor of the spill-proof dog bowl, and claims that making the switch from inventing to hospitality was not a very hard one.
“My business associate wanted half of my company. He was getting ready to buy into my corporation. When he saw Dogpatch, he asked me, ‘how much would you like to have Dogpatch?’ And I said I would trade my whole corporation, my intellectual property, I would turn it all over for Dogpatch. And that’s what I did. Instead of taking the money, I took half of Dogpatch, and he was okay with it, because he had fallen in love with it too,” said Pelsor.
Pelsor and Robertson toured Dogpatch together on Aug. 23, 2014 and had decided to buy the property by May 1, 2014. Since then, Pelsor has been working on renovating and promoting the new Dogpatch, which will instead be called The Village of Dogpatch.
“We’re keeping the name, but we’re adding to it,” said Pelsor.
Instead of featuring rides and comic book characters, Pelsor wants the park to focus more on Ecotourism. The former comic book characters will be replaced with artisans and crafters from all over, who work in the village and sell their creations. A Blacksmith shop has already been donated to the park, and a female blacksmith, who is also a leathersmith, has been recruited to work in the park.
“Hardly any of the products in the former Dogpatch were made on site, and that’s what we want to specialize in. We want to have a trademark label for the Village of Dogpatch. I would like to have a few villagers that are producing art that will gain fame. It will be a really nice place to come and visit resident artists and get art that you can’t find anywhere else,” said Pelsor.
The resident artists will be the main attraction of the village, along with all the natural beauty that has always been Dogpatch.
“Dogpatch has huge trees, wonderful stone formations and water features, huge waterfalls, antique mills, and grottos. Everything I saw was so wonderful and spiritual, not in a religious context, but an Earth connection. It’s an escape from the hectic hustle and bustle. It’s just a wonderful place to be and I just fell in love with it. I thought, ‘hey, I’m the guy that can steer this back in the direction it needs to go,’” and that is just what Pelsor is doing.
The new owner has plans to restore Dogpatch to its former glory. He will restock the trout farm with trout and the Margarita Ferra mussel, which is indigenous to Arkansas. There are also many caves that have yet to be explored, and Pelsor plans on turning one of these known caves into a miniature amphitheater.
Another one of Pelsor’s goals is to work with the United States Department of Agriculture tree stewardship project. He will work in conjunction with the state of Arkansas to find out which trees would be the best to plant for his reforestry project. Two of the species that will be included in the park are Ozark Chinquapin and the Arkansas Black Apple.
“It doesn’t matter if the Arkansas Black Apple qualifies for a grant, I will still put in an orchard of Black Apples, just to have,” said Pelsor.
There will also be a mill in the park that will run 24/7 and will be used to generate electricity and power the street lights in the park.
“We’re a step above organic here,” said Pelsor. “We will be working on improving the water, improving the soil, and improving the food. I would also like to start our own manufacturing process in Marble Halls.” This will feature solar energy, wind energy, and food grade American made plastic molding.“There will be no carbon footprint. We are working hard to get it off the grid and make it green.”
Along with these new editions, park guests will be able to see some of the original Dogpatch in The Village. Bud believes that up to 85 percent of the original theme park’s building can be renovated and rebuilt, and they will be included in the park.
“There will be a lot that will look the same,” said Pelsor. He also has plans to construct a museum that will memorialize, not just the former Dogpatch, but the city that came before it, and the Native Americans before that city. The city of Wilcox was built around the 1840’s and existed before Dogpatch. The city was there for about 65 years, and the new museum will memorialize Wilcox. However, the first deed to the property was to a Choctaw Indian, so the museum will also memorialize the artifacts of the native american heritage.
“I have to go back to the beginning to tell the whole story. I want to put a museum in to do this,” said Pelsor.
A Riverwalk was hosted on Dec. 6-7 for the public to come out and view Dogpatch. Over 5,000 people from 7 different states showed up for the chance to visit Dogpatch again.
“I always want to be prepared, so I figured that it being December and short notice, we’ll be lucky if we get 500, so we better prepare for 2,000,” said Pelsor. The amount of people that ended up coming out was therefore unbelievable.
“On monday when I drove around to clean up, it almost made me cry. I only picked up about 4 coffee cups and 10 cigarette butts,” said Pelsor. “It was just so amazing. I’m not used to that. I’m used to clean up being 15 trash bags.”
Emotions ran high at this Riverwalk, which included performances by musicians and refreshments for all.
“I got hugged at least a hundred times by women, I even got hugged a few times by men. They were all tickled to death to see that someone was finally doing something, anything.
After 20 some years, people lost faith in anyone coming back to do anything. But the dream never died, it just got faded and dusty,” said Pelsor. “The Riverwalk really brought people out of the woods. I got business cards and phone numbers. So I’m networked in pretty well to all the indigenous artists, I may even advertise to the world that I’m looking for artists to come live in a really nice, unique community.”
Bud plans to host a second Riverwalk on the first Saturday of May, Derby Day, which will be open to the public as well and is hopeful that The Village of Dogpatch will be open between 2 and 5 years.
“If we could have the gates open permanently in three years, I would be really happy. My five year plan is to have enough artists in the village to already be a destination. The memory of Dopatch bringing people, but when they get here, they’ll realize the artists that are here, The Village of Dogpatch will be its own destination,” said Pelsor.