Lake Bella Vista
is a special place
I speak as one of the few people who lived within sight of Lake Bella Vista from 1945 to 1957, then again between 1996 to 2011. I'll also disclose that I am a granddaughter of one of the owners of the Bella Vista summer resort from 1917 to 1952, and president of the Bella Vista Historical Society that operates the museum and I personally want Lake Bella Vista saved.
I would hate to see the dam removed, as Friends of Sugar Creek are advocating, and then have people see how much nicer it was when it was there. If destroyed, some type of walkway across where the present dam with its two bridges are will have to be built in order to return to one's car after circling the lake, otherwise this present benefit will be lost.
Based upon my observations in the mid-50s when Lake Bella Vista owner E. L. Keith drained the lake during winter to excavate the lake bed to make it consistently deep and safe enough for water skiing, the creek did not become a "wild stream with crystal-clear water running over a gravel stream bed," a goal expressed by the Sugar Creek advocates.
In fact we could easily jump across it many places, which we did if we didn't want to walk all the way back to the dam and bridges to get to the other side.
The best evidence of how Sugar Creek was before Lake Bella Vista was created in 1915 is found in the 1903 Benton County Atlas maps. It shows Sugar Creek's passage downstream in what is now the City of Bella Vista.
In that entire area, there was not a single bridge shown, which is to say that people crossed Little Sugar by wagon, horseback, in a truck or on foot by simply fording the creek at its many low water places. In fact, Miss Sadie Cunningham said that she crossed the creek three times in route to school at Dug Hill in 1904 when she was 10. She later taught at Dug Hill after the dam was built and still forded the creek. Based upon this, I think it is fair to say that the creek wasn't "wild" enough that they needed any bridges across Sugar Creek.
The opponents of the dam say the lake is smelly and the algae prevents it from sustaining fish, but other times I've seen weekend fisherman fishing from the banks. In periods of sustained high temperatures with no rain, algae grows, which occurs in most shallow, still water.
Complaints of a "bad smell" to the POA made one board member against the lake, but I'm told by golfers playing weekly that they haven't noticed it.
I say build the dam using up-to-date technology, materials and new flood gates. Use FEMA's grant to Bentonville -- an opportunity which should not be passed up. The sooner built, the sooner we can start enjoying a second 100 years of such a special place!
Carole Harter
Bella Vista
Editorial on 11/25/2015