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It’s been a long, difficult journey, but the effort has finally paid off.
Bull Shoals Caverns and Mountain Village 1890 have officially been designated as national historic sites by the federal government, paving the way for new opportunities to restore the sites various aging buildings.
Mountain Village 1890 received its official placard to designate its new status yesterday.
“We made [the state designation] back in December, but they submitted us right back in the nationals,” said Genia Scarberry, a local resident who has been working with Mountain Village 1890 owner Gerald Oates to have the site listed as a historical site.
“We were just made aware of it through a letter that we had passed,” Scarberry said.
For the last three years, Scarberry has worked with Bull Shoals Caverns owner Gerald Oates to get the destination marked down as a historical site with the Department of Arkansas Heritage. Oates has owned the 13-acre property for over ten years.
In December, the State of Arkansas named both sites as historical landmarks, paving the way for Oates and Scarberry to file for much-needed grant money to restore the aging property to its former glory. Following the announcement, the state submitted a request to the national historical landmark registry, giving the Bull Shoals landmark a chance at receiving federal grants.
It was approved, with interest returning to Bull Shoals Caverns, which is currently in the process of being examined by experts. If all goes well, the caverns will be fully mapped out through the use of Lidar technology.
As it stands now, much of the history surrounding Bull Shoals Caverns is unknown. In an interview, Scarberry said she was working to create a team to explore the deeper reaches of the caverns, which have mostly been sealed off from the public.
According to Scarberry, local rumor claims the caverns travel underneath Bull Shoals and that a second entrance was sealed off long ago to keep vacationers and locals from entering in the back way.
“They do want to know more information about the cave. They want to know how much further back it goes,” Scarberry said. “The history of the cave is that it goes all the way through town and ends over at Dino’s resort out there at Rocky Hide A Way. When a [previous owner] bought it, they blew it up to keep people from sneaking in. That’s the story.”
Bull Shoals Cavern & Mountain Village 1890 features nine historic buildings from the surrounding area but has not been able to apply for grants to help maintain the buildings because of its for-profit status.
The move to list the site came after Scarberry and Mountain Village’s General Manager Jim Jenson attended a five-hour training session in Little Rock to learn the ins and outs of applying for a historical designation.
They discovered that while the popular Bull Shoals attraction can’t have the buildings listed as historical designations because of the business’s for-profit status, the business itself qualifies for a historical designation because it has been in operation since 1960.
The site was originally opened by Roy Danuser, a local attorney in Bull Shoals, who purchased the property from C.S. “Pappy” Woods Sr. before turning it into an attraction. The site has changed hands throughout the years and has been owned by several major Bull Shoals figures, including the Gastons and the Grahams.
Scarberry and her close friend Vicki Swanson of Flippin, who helped with writing, filed the request with the state in December 2021.
Bull Shoals cavern is listed as one of the oldest limestone caverns in the Ozark Mountain Range, formed by water method around 350 million years ago; local populations have used the caverns over the ages. The first human dwelling on the property is claimed to have been around 300 BC via carbon dating. During the Civil War, the caverns were used by soldiers to create saltpeter, one of the ingredients needed to create gunpowder.
The average temperature for the cave is 59 degrees. The cave features a waterfall, several streams, stalactites, stalagmites, drapolites, box work, columns, cave pearls, and more. It serves as a restful respite to native salamanders, frogs, camel crickets, and pipistrelle bats.
After laying dormant for several years in the 1900s, the property and caves were converted into an amusement park in the 1960s. The site, named Mountain Village 1890 for its iconic and historical buildings, flourished during that time, drawing in tourists visiting Bull Shoals.
The village was host to several festivals throughout the years and, for a time, featured a full cast of actors to put on performances at the village.
The village plays host to a variety of historical buildings and features, including a train depot from 1903 that serves as the village’s front office and gift shop, a locomotive from the Acme Brick Company train yard, a Blue Eye, Missouri community church from 1888, the Flippin family’s historical 1874 home, and the Blacksmith & Coffin Shop dating back to 1878 from Dawt, Missouri.
Also on the property is the home of Confederate Colonel William B. Jordan, who moved to the Monkey Run area of Baxter County in the 1860s, an original jailhouse from Calico Rock, an 1889 general store from Buford, an original 1881 bank from Ash Flat, the Martin House, which played host to President Herbert Hoover in 1893, and Uncle Willie’s Cabin, a small cabin that has been in the Bull Shoals area for as long as most can remember.
Each of the village’s historical buildings has suffered from time and exposure to the weather. At this time, several of the buildings are currently leaking and are in need of serious repair.
Following its explosion in popularity from its opening days, the property has slowly declined over the years, being passed off from one owner to the next. That process continued with Oates, the current owner, until a couple of years ago when he and Scarberry began to work to restore the property.
Now many of the site’s buildings are closed off from the public for renovation, with many receiving work on their foundations and roofs thanks to the help of local companies and donors. Most recently, Lowe’s has helped donate tarps to help cover holes in the roofs as they are replaced.
Real McCoy Enterprise, which was hired to install the tarps, took the process even further by donating materials to fix the tin roof on the villages Martin House.
“It’s John McCoy,” Scarberry said. “He donated the tin for the Martin House to actually do the Martin House so that we don’t have to put up the tarps anymore.
With its new national status, Scarberry said she would be helping the site to create a 501c3 for Mountain Village 1890 and would also begin applying for federal grants to begin restoration on the site.
She said she expects the process to go quickly and smoothly. Several restoration nonprofits and groups have already shown interest in working with the national historical site to restore its buildings. Bull Shoals Cavern is expected to remain a for profit business.
If Mountain Village 1890 is restored, Scarberry said the site would return to the practice of holding regular shows and performances with artists, musicians and actors. Mountain Home Village currently has a crew of 30 artists that participate in Mission to Mend, a visual and audio art show put on by Scarberry for various fundraising events.
Mountain Village 1890 and Bull Shoals Caverns are currently open seven days a week during July. Private tours of the village are available.
Mountain Village 1890 is located at 1011 C.S. Woods Boulevard in Bull Shoals, Arkansas. For more information, including its seasonal dates, please call (870) 445-7177.
