WEIRD AND
WONDERFUL IN
ARKANSAS
Monte Ne: A mysterious
underwater town
By Karen Rice
Official Kids Mag
Under the waters in Beaver Lake in Northwest Arkansas lies a
luxury resort whose guests now are fishes.
It was the creation of a man named William Harvey, a teacher,
lawyer, silver mine owner and entrepreneur who decided to buy
land in the Ozarks in the early 1900s and build his own perfect
community and vacation spot.
He called the community "Monte Ne" after the Spanish word for
"mountain" and the Native American word for "water."
Monte Ne was located about 5 miles south of Rogers, Arkansas.
William Harvey realized his dream by building three hotels, a tennis
court, the state's first indoor swimming pool and one of the state's
first golf courses. People travelled by train from miles around to stay
in the luxury resort. Harvey even had a new railway station and five-
mile stretch of railway built, to bring travelers from the train station
in Lowell, Arkansas. Monte Ne was advertised as "The only place in
America where a gondola meets the train." Once visitors arrived
at the Monte Ne rail station, imported Italian gondolas took them
across the lagoon to the hotels. There were bands and speakers and
fox hunts and boating and fishing outings. It was a luxurious vacation
destination in its day.
Eventually, the automobile became more popular and people could
travel anywhere, not just to places where trains went. So Monte Ne
became less and less popular, even though Harvey tried to keep it
going by trying to get roads built that led to it.
Despite Harvey's work to have all roads lead to to Monte Ne, by
1920 the resort was no longer what it had been.
Then, Harvey began work on a new idea. Since he believed that
civilization was ending, he started to build a pyramid that would
include messages for future civilizations and a time capsule buried
in the basement. But Harvey ran out of money and his health was
failing so only the pyramid's foundation and amphitheater were ever
completed.
After Harvey died in 1936, he was buried, along with his books and
papers, in a concrete that had been built for his son, who had died
earlier.
Monte
Ne,
1910
Eccentric
William
"Coin"
Harvey
built
his
Monte
Ne
resort
around
1900
a
few
miles
outside
of
Rogers.
The
nickname
"Coin"
was
given
him
for
his
theory
that
the
nation's
banking
system
would
collapse
and
ruin
the
world
economy
unless
the
gold
standard
was
replaced
with
one
of
silver.
His
resort
boasted
gondolas
and
canals
like
those
of
Venice.
Today
most
of
the
resort
lies
beneath
Beaver
Lake.
16 • Off icialKidsMag.com • NOVEMBER 2019
