The Bella Vista Historical Museum's fall driving tour, one of two the museum does each year, allowed visitors to take a look at several of the city's historical sites, including the trout farm, Wonderland Cave, the ground that used to be a swimming pool near Lake Bella Vista, and the Artist Retreat Center.
Xyta Lucas leads the tour, which the museum offers once in the spring and once in the fall.
She doesn't really need to advertise, she said, because the tour always fills up.
She's been doing it for a few years now, she said. The tour became a tradition after she put a tour together for her Quester group. Members of Questers are interested in historical buildings and antiques.
From there, she said, she decided to try it as a museum fundraiser, charging $10 per person.
The tricky part, she said, is working out the carpooling. Partly to avoid causing traffic problems, she said, and partly to avoid parking issues, the tour needs to be limited to eight cars, including her own.
The tour takes roughly four hours, she said. Anyone interested in the next tour can stop in to the museum and get on the waiting list.
There are two tours each year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Lucas said she did not want to have more than two annually because some stops, like the fish hatchery, are on private property, and she does not want to cause any headaches for property owners.
Once a date is set for the tour, which requires looking for a good weekend the museum has free, she said, she can start calling people and confirming guests.
This fall's tour started by heading out to Summit Cemetery in the Metfield area, next to the remains of an old church, school and community center's foundation.
"People went to school here," Lucas said. "They went to church here."
She pointed out the grave of A.E. Perkins, who died Feb 12, 1902.
Perkins was, according to local lore, killed by his wife and a hired hand, she said, and the two killers disappeared after the fact.
From there, tour attendees headed out to Wonderland Cave to check out the cave's entrance, as well as the caretaker's cottage, which burned down in 2010. The cave entrance is along Dartmoor Road.
The cave, she said, was opened as a nightclub back in 1930.
"When they opened it," she said, "they had it as a jazz and big band nightclub."
Beyond this, the tour also covered the trout farm, which is now a private residence sitting along a spring-fed creek south of Cooper Elementary School.
The spring, she said, used to feed water to the west side of U.S. Highway 71, and adequate pressure was achieved with hydraulic rams.
Attendees were dwarfed by the rock ledge hanging over a cave that the spring flows from, and they were more than happy to take in the site's waterfall.
Beyond this, the tour covered the old swimming pool and a water building that used to feed cabins on the cast side of the highway, before finishing at the Artist Retreat Center.
Gary and Ellen Creakbaum, a couple living in Bella Vista, said they loved the tour.
"I enjoyed it," Gary Creakbaum said. "We've been to the museum several times."
They've been wanting to go on the tour for a while now, he said, and something or another kept getting in the way. This time around, they made sure to clear their schedules.
And it was worth it, they said.
"I think everyone who lives here should take the tour," Ellen Creakbaum said, "or at least go to the museum."
The trip as a whole, Gary Creakbaum said, was fantastic. There wasn't any stop or site that seemed any more important than any other.
"I enjoyed each one," he said, "because it kind of put the puzzle together. Great way to spend your Saturday afternoon."
General News on 11/16/2016