Highway 71 Revisited: Small Business Comes Alive As Traffic Grows

Elaine Bowlin said everyone thought she was crazy.

In October, Bowlin reopened her mother’s restaurant on U.S. Highway 71 near Winslow. After running the place for 12 years, Ernestine Shepherd had closed the Blue Bird House Café in 2003 for health reasons.

But business owners along Highway 71 between Alma and Fayetteville have seen lean times since Interstate 540 opened in January 1999, and opening a business along the old highway seemed risky.

“We stay busy,” Bowlin said of the restaurant, which she renamed Grandma’s House Café.

So busy, in fact, that there’s often a line on Sundays for one of the café’s 11 tables. Bowlin said she’s going to put two more tables in a back room to handle the crowds.

Bowlin said she decided to reopen the restaurant because she had noticed an increase in traffic on Highway 71. And she’s right, according to the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.

When I-540 opened, traffic on Highway 71 skidded by 70 percent. An average of 8,200 cars per day were diverted from 71 to the new freeway while tourist-oriented businesses like restaurants, motels and gift shops suffered.

A “scenic” highway designation didn’t seem to help much as the traffic count on Highway 71 continued to decline (see chart).

Then, inexplicably, traffic on Scenic 71 jumped 39 percent in 2004. (The highway department doesn’t have numbers yet for 2005.)

Tourists Take Scenic Route

For the majority of the 20th century, Highway 71 through the Boston Mountains was the main route to Northwest Arkansas from the Arkansas River Valley.

Seven years after I-540 opened, some businesses along Scenic 71 have closed, some are just barely getting by and others are reinventing themselves.

Glenn Jorgenson, owner of Sky-Vue Lodge on U.S. 71 in Winslow, said his business had bucked the trend along the highway. He said his gross revenue jumped 25 percent in 1999, the year I-540 opened.

Since then, sales growth has been slower, but Jorgenson said increases of 10 percent to 16 percent are pretty normal. 2004 was a bump in the road, though. That year, Jorgenson said his revenue increased less than 2 percent. Last year, however, it jumped 10 percent to about $100,000. From March through November, Jorgenson said his weekend occupancy rate was about 89 percent. He already has two fall weekends booked for Razorback football games.

“It will never be what it was traffic-wise, and that’s OK,” Jorgenson said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Sky-Vue is a 73-year-old motor court that Jorgenson has turned into a bed and breakfast inn. Glenn and Janice Jorgenson bought the lodge in the spring of 1994. Sky-Vue has seven cabins and three rooms, with another being built, which overlooks the Ozark Mountains to the east. On a clear day, Mount Magazine’s new lodge can be seen from the back porch of one of his cabins, he said.

Mrs. Russell Blaylock and her husband have owned Artist Point, a gift shop in Mountainburg, since 1954. She said business hasn’t slowed down very much for them since the interstate opened. The only thing that has slowed down is the bumper-to-bumper traffic along U.S. 71.

“I say that 540 is the greatest thing that has happened to us,” Blaylock said. “[Highway 71 is] not busy, it’s a scenic route, and the state does a lot to promote it.”

Blaylock said she’s found that many out-of-state travelers like to take the scenic routes. This month, she had a couple from Connecticut stop by as they were on their way to Florida.

Last fall, they opened a 3,000-SF, four-bedroom lodge above their shop. It’s booked for most weekends, she said.

Smokehouse Closes

But not every business on the highway has a success story.

In October, after 36 years as a landmark along Highway 71, Frank Sharp closed the Ozark Mountain Smokehouse’s Boston Mountain Store in Mountainburg.

Sales dropped by 66 percent after I-540 opened, Sharp said. Sharp, who owns the chain of six restaurants in Arkansas and Missouri, said after the initial drop, sales “increased a little bit but not enough.”

After years of hoping business would pick back up, Sharp said he finally moved all the employees from the Boston Mountain store to the Fayetteville stores.

Sharp has put the 3,000-SF store and 12 acres of land at Mountainburg up for sale for $269,000.

Some businesses are staying alive, even if they’re just getting by. Carl Jobe, owner of Shady Oaks, a store in Mountainburg, said his business declined after I-540 opened but he’s breaking even now.

At 82, Jobe still makes large and small cedar wagons, old-fashion horse buggies, cedar chests, and wood furniture at the business he’s operated for the past 24 years.

Much of Jobe’s business is from dealers all over the United States who hear about his work through word of mouth. Jobe also sells the items he makes to customers who are just passing through. Earlier this month, a man from Texas stopped and bought 10 cedar chests from Jobe. He sold them to the man for $200 each, and the Texas buyer told Jobe he planned to sell them for $500 each.

“I make a living; I don’t make a lot,” Jobe said.

Lake Fort Smith

Jorgenson and Jobe said the completion of Lake Fort Smith State Park should add to the tourism numbers. Ron Gossage, park superintendent, said the park should be open by May 2007.

The $22 million park project will have one group cabin, a visitor center, a marina, hiking trails, boat launch, swimming pool and campsites surrounding a 1,500-acre lake with depths of about 150 feet, Gossage said.

“We feel like even though a majority of traffic is on I-540 that we’ll be drawing some people off that,” Gossage said. “We’ll have our interstate signs that will tell people we’re open and what we have to offer. I think we’re going to be pretty impressive.”

Gossage said the park expects to draw about 75,000 people in its first eight months of business and hopes to have 150,000 visitors in its first year of operation.

All Aboard

For people who want to see the scenic Ozark Mountains from a different perspective, the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad’s excursion train has offered passengers scenic rides for 16 years.

In 2005, about 16,500 people rode the four 1920s-era passenger cars and a 1950s first-class parlor car up and down the mountain, said Brenda Brown, passenger operations manager for A&M in Springdale. Brown said that was a 70 percent increase from its 9,700 passengers in 2004.

A train ticket can run from $35 to $80 for an adult ticket, depending on the car class and age of the passenger.

“We get a lot of people from the five-state area that come in, so we work really close with the hotels for overnight packages,” Brown said, adding that locals account for a very low percentage of riders.

Much of the increase has to do with the addition of the parlor car, which features a dance floor and a flat-screen television. Passengers can enjoy meals catered by Crossroads Junction Café and Catering in Springdale and Taliano’s Italian Restaurant in Fort Smith. The railroad also expanded its services by offering stationary events such as birthday parties and company charters, Brown said.

Passengers can make a roundtrip from Springdale to Van Buren or Van Buren to Winslow from April through September. From October to November, a fall foliage excursion can be taken from Springdale to Van Buren or Van Buren to Winslow. In May, A&M will add a Springdale-to-Fort Smith and Fort Smith-to-Winslow trip.

The Springdale-to-Fort Smith roundtrip is the “Slots of Fun Game Train.” The excursion train, which will run from May to July, will take passengers to Fort Smith where a bus will shuttle them to the Choctaw Casino in Pocola, Okla., for a free lunch buffet and two hours of gaming, Brown said.

They’ve also been doing dinner trains. For Valentine’s Day, about 100 people rode the train and had dinner in the parlor car. Brown said they plan to do the same thing for St. Patrick’s Day.

On any particular excursion, passengers are taken through a 1,700 tunnel in Winslow and over several 100-feet high trestles. The trip takes about 2.5 hours, and once the train gets to the depot, passengers have about 2.5 to 3 hours to shop and eat, Brown said.

“I think it’s more the nostalgic part of the excursion and getting away from the hustle and bustle of every day life,” Brown said.

The rail cars have also been on the silver screen. They were used in the movies “Biloxi Blues” and “Tuskegee Airmen.”