The Lost City of Monte Ne

In recent years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested to transform Northwest Arkansas into a world-class tourism destination—Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, world-class mountain biking trails, nature resorts, etc.

But nearly a century before certain heirs of a certain Fortune 100 company began spending millions of dollars to put this region “on the map,” a man you’ve probably never heard of did just that.

He spent a fortune turning a small Ozark town into a luxurious resort complete with multiple hotels, an Italian gondola, and Arkansas’s first indoor swimming pool. He established a network of roads stretching as far away as the Texas panhandle to promote Arkansas tourism.

I’m talking, of course, about Monte Ne, a once-thriving resort town that is now submerged beneath the waters of Beaver Lake.

But who was the man behind the sunken city?