Past Perspectives

Courtesy Bella Vista Historical Museum Water was piped from this spring house up on the hill across the highway to the Wishing Spring Dairy.
Courtesy Bella Vista Historical Museum Water was piped from this spring house up on the hill across the highway to the Wishing Spring Dairy.

This is a reprint of a Past Perspectives column written by Xyta Lucas and published in the Weekly Vista on Jan. 30, 2013.

The building in which Wishing Spring Gallery is housed, at Highway 71 and County Road 40, is over 80 years old ... it is housed in a barn that was made into a dairy barn in 1941 by C.A. Linebarger, who, with his brothers, had opened the Lake Bella Vista summer resort in 1917.

Originally, the land in that area was one piece of property that straddled Highway 100 (now Highway 71). The old route was just east of the current highway, with a pond reportedly sitting in what would now be the middle of Highway 71 and removed when Highway 100 was relocated a short distance to the west.

Upon the hill to the west above the 71/CR 40 intersection, an old barn stands alone but with a spring just north of it, over which Linebarger constructed a spring house. It was used for food storage, and he also piped water from it down the hill and over to a concrete tank in the Wishing Spring dairy barn. Those pipes were torn up and that all stopped, however, when Highway 100 was relocated.

How Linebarger decided on the name Wishing Spring is unknown, but when he decided to build the dairy barn across the road in 1941, he named it Wishing Spring since its water source was the spring up on the hill across the road.

In 1952, the Linebarger Brothers sold the Lake Bella Vista resort to E.L. Keith, and a few years later, Keith also bought the Wishing Spring dairy farm from C.A. Linebarger. Linebarger kept the farm up on the hill, first naming it the "112 Ranch," since it was located on Highway 100 and he had 12 head of cattle on it, but later he changed the name to the "Wishing Spring Ranch."

When John Cooper Sr. decided to build a retirement/recreation village in the area and began buying up farms in the early 1960s, he bought the Wishing Spring dairy farm from Keith. In 1971, Linebarger gave the Wishing Spring Ranch across the highway to Andy Davis, E.L. Keith's nephew who had moved to Arkansas with Keith, and Andy willed it to his son D.A., who still owns it.

The Wishing Spring dairy farm was also known as "Buffalo Flats" because a friend of John Cooper Sr. had given Cooper a pair of buffalo in 1966, and before long, the pair evolved into a herd. But by the late 1970s, the buffalo were gone and the barn was abandoned.

The Village Art Club (now known as the Artisan Alliance) was looking for a place to exhibit its members' works of art and arranged with Cooper Communities to lease the barn. After two years of hard work cleaning up and remodeling the barn, it opened the gallery in the fall of 1984. Fifteen years later, in 1999, Cooper donated the building and the surrounding five acres to the art club, stating it was to be used for arts and crafts related purposes for the next 10 years, and if that ceased, the property would revert to Cooper. Once the 10 years passed, the property became permanently owned by the club. At some point, the legal description of the property was changed to Wishing Springs, but the gallery still bears the original name of Wishing Spring.

Lucas is co-president of the Bella Vista Historical Museum, located on Highway 71 next to the American Legion building. The museum is open Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m., with covid restrictions in place. Admission is free.

Courtesy Bella Vista Historical Museum C.A. Linebarger converted the barn into the Wishing Spring Dairy in 1941.  At some point the small caretaker’s house was torn down, and County Road 40 was moved closer to the barn.
Courtesy Bella Vista Historical Museum C.A. Linebarger converted the barn into the Wishing Spring Dairy in 1941. At some point the small caretaker’s house was torn down, and County Road 40 was moved closer to the barn.