

But why is the structure here? What caused it to be abandoned on the lakeshore? The answer lies between the waters of Beaver Lake and the dream of an entrepreneur with ideas about Utopia.
***
I have heard whispers of Monte Ne all my adult life, but mostly from people who had heard it from others. An old friend who scuba-dived said he had been meaning to get up there for years. An acquaintance told me there was a resort under Beaver Lake that was part sanitorium, part summer camp. It sounded like “The Road to Wellville,” the 1994 movie about a 1920s health resort. A little research and a personal visit would banish those myths and solidify what Monte Ne really was in my mind.
***

He used some revolutionary ideas in the construction of his resort -- including the utilization of slabs of concrete in many of the structures on the site. He combined this with more traditional construction methods. The two hotels constructed at the resort that made it to completion
were made from logs with tile roofs. These two structures called Oklahoma Row and Missouri Row were at the time the longest log cabins in the world.
He financed the building of the resort through the sale of his writings regarding free silver. His nickname, “Coin,” comes from his most popular work, Coin’s Financial School. He sunk $100,000 dollars (half his own, half from investors) into construction at the site. It wasn’t just about building the hotels. He had retaining walls built along the creek and lagoon and walkways constructed and even had a railroad assembled to run between the resort and Lowell to bring in guests. Those guests would disembark from the train and be escorted by gondola to the resort itself.
He built Arkansas’ first indoor pool in a bathhouse on Silver Creek across the lagoon from the resort. The downtown area he laid out had a livery stable, a bank (which used Harvey’s own scrip instead of American dollars), a grist mill, general store, and post office. His son Tom even ran a newspaper, the Monte Ne Herald, in the town.

But some of Harvey’s ideas just didn’t take well with guests. He had a lights-out at 10 p.m. policy and reportedly wouldn’t allow sick children at the resort. He was a wiley sort. “He wasn’t crazy,” Lord told me. “Some folks think he was, but those were different times.”

In February 1920, he published Common Sense, announcing his intention to leave a message for the future in the form of a pyramid. His plans called for a structure that would have been 130 feet high and which would have contained artifacts from the age preserved for the future -- a globe, newspapers, domestic items and things like record players and such. Harvey had a 165 foot retaining wall built, but that’s as far as he got on the structure.

The Great Depression pretty much ended Harvey’s pyramid dream. By that point he had sold off the hotels, which continued to do business under other operators. The Oklahoma and Missouri Rows spent time as the Ozark Industrial College and School of Theology until 1932.
Harvey wasn’t quite done yet, though. He formed The Liberty Party and gathered together a presidential convention at Monte Ne in 1932, the only presidential convention ever to be held in Arkansas. He expected 10,000 people -- he got just 786 delegates who nominated him as their presidential candidate. The party ended up merging with the Jobless Party and Harvey ended up running independent, coming in 6th in the election with just 800 votes.
He was done. He continued to write his newsletter, The Liberty Bell, until his death in 1936. He was entombed along with his son Hal (who had died in 1903) in a concrete structure, along with many of his books and papers.
The buildings were sold off and used for other purposes -- such as training facilities for the Arkansas Guard and facilities for a girls’ camp.
What truly took out Monte Ne, though, was the encroachment of Beaver Lake. The Corps of Engineers determined in 1960 that the lake would inundate Monte Ne and made moves to buy up the land all around there. The log structure portion of Oklahoma Row was purchased and moved north, where it can still be seen, sagging by the side of Highway 94.
However, the Corps expected Beaver Lake to cover all of the old resort. Those levels fell short, which is why you can view much of what’s left behind today.
***
So what’s left of Monte Ne today? I’d heard my share of rumors, from “it’s completely submerged” to “it’s not worth your time.” But curiosity got the better of me. I did my research, looked up the site on Google Maps and figured out how to get down to it off the highway.

But where were the ruins of Monte Ne? We found what we thought might be the most accessible point as we came in view of Beaver Lake. With a severe drop-off from the asphalt and no discernible shoulder, Grav asked if I’d stand in the road and divert any traffic that might come around the corner as he went down the bank to capture shots of the tower he could see in the distance.


Footpaths have been forged in the grass for some time here… and more gives way to concrete, not a sidewalk or roadbed but what turned out to be the roof of the basement section of what was once Oklahoma Row. There was one hole I noticed, big enough to trip into but not wide enough to allow one to fall all the way through.
You can stand on a corner of the building, no guardrail or safety net in place, and potentially trip off and hit the rocks below. The vantage point overlooks what was once Silver Springs below. Now you see houses on the opposite bank, a boat dock and water.

I followed Grav out to the tower. The sun was heading towards a setting in the southwest, nearly behind the tower itself, very bright and blinding. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t see the graffiti until I got close.
There’s all sorts of tags on the outside of the building, mostly around the base of the structure but a few high up around the windows overhead. Daredevils must have taken great pleasure at pointing out how far they got from the portals when they managed to tag out at such precarious angles. It still didn’t prepare me for the inside.




Off to the west side of the point, we could look back and see what we had been standing on. With the water down we could actually walk right up to what was once the basement of Oklahoma Row.
We waited until a couple managed to come back up from their inspection, then took a look inside. The basement level rooms weren’t used for housing -- except for a small room on the north end of the structure. That room contained a fireplace, a small room with plumbing that had apparently once been a bathroom, and much rubble all over
the floor. We’d later discover that access to that section was usually unavailable.
After that exploration we walked back along the shoreline to the east, passing the tower and following a long pipe that I assumed had once been underground. Time and erosion had washed away the dirt around it.

And next to this remnant in time? A boat ramp into the lake. There were another half-dozen people along the landing, fishing or talking to people who were fishing.
We’d discover later on that we missed one important sight -- that of the tomb of William Harvey and his son Robert, sitting on private land on the opposite side of the boat ramp. The tomb itself is cracked, apparently from being moved when the lake was created to avoid being inundated.

We doubled back along the highway until we came to a side road. It took us up a decently steep hill on a narrow band of asphalt. The first view through the trees came at a house hanging onto the land above the lake bank. Grav jumped out, went and knocked on the door and asked permission to shoot.
The light was starting to fade, and there were lots of branches in the way, so we looked for another spot to try our luck again. We drove further along and found a side road that ran close to the lakeside. But there still wasn’t a good shot.
Finally Grav asked me to stop -- he’d seen something unusual way out on what appeared to be a peninsula. I sat with the car, watching the neighborhood dogs smell at the wheels and give friendly barks while he jogged through a yard and down a good ways. I caught sight of him later almost a half-mile away right on the edge of the water.
Turns out the little peninsula he was on is usually an island, and if the water was lower you could actually see the top of what was the amphitheater. However, the Corps of Engineers rarely lets the lake get even as low as on that particular day, and there was not much for him to shoot in the fading light of the afternoon.


Tip: The water levels for Beaver Lake on the day Grav photographed the ruins were at 1120 feet. The top of the amphitheater is clearly visible at 1113 feet. In December, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a notice of low water levels, and those levels fell to 1113 feet the week of Christmas. If you’re interested in viewing the amphitheater and would like to monitor the water levels, you can review a daily water level report here.

The Rogers Historical Museum has both an exhibit on Monte Ne at its facility and an on-line exhibit to peruse. Tour “Buried Dreams: ‘Coin Harvey’ and Monte Ne” at the museum, open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday at 301 W. Chestnut in Rogers. Call (479) 621-1117. You can find the online article here.

Read this story and much more, including The Birds, in the February 2011 issue of Arkansas Wild.
Spectacular use of natural lighting on your shots. I though that the whole place can really use industrial strength cleaning services, especially if the damage done has accumulated over the years.
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Our family moved to Monte Ne in 1969 and leased The Monte Ne Store, which was owned by Kenneth and Irene Doescher. The store itself was a small Convience Store. The building had been used for The Monte Ne Post Office, a burger and sandwich bar, a bait and tackle shop, boat rentals and gas pumps out in front of the store. We operated the store for 3 years. The Doeschers knew Coin Harvey, personally. Mr. Doescher was a personal secretary to Coin Harvey and Mrs. Doescher's foster parents owned The General Store in the old Town of Monte Ne where Mr. Harvey came to buy from them. These two fine people were a treasure trove of general information in regard to the town and Mr. Harvey. They donated land for Mr. Harvey's tomb because the lake was filling up and the tomb would have been underwater. We were privileged to call Kenneth and Irene Doescher friends. We also attended The Monte Ne Baptist Church together. Such wonderful memories for my husband and I and our children. We moved about a mile from the lake, but still live in the Monte Ne area.
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