Listing Through Life

I’ll add a restaurant to my to-do list if it shows up in one of two places — Roadfood or the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame. Doe’s makes both lists.

It doesn’t look like a place where you can get a $60 steak, but it is. In fact, steaks are the specialty on the dinner menu. Their motto is “for goodness steaks!”

It was filled with Little Rock business men and, perhaps, politicians, since it’s located about halfway between downtown and the state capitol. The walls were lined with photos and most of the ones by our table were of Bill Clinton.

Their other specialty is hot tamales, so we ordered three as an appetizer. They come with chili that you cover the tamale with. Tamales are not something I often order, so I didn’t catch on that they were wrapped in wax paper until I’d covered one with chili.

We both got hamburgers (mine with cheese), and it was obvious from the first bite that the meat was a higher quality than the typical hamburger. The fries were very tasty, although we both wished they’d been a little less limp.

Our waitress was very busy, but also very competent and friendly. She told us that the first Doe’s opened in Greenville, Mississippi and is still there. This surprised us a bit because we’d gone through Greenville on the way home from Florida and didn’t find much to like about the town.

Doe’s isn’t located in a part of town we frequent, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we make it back sometime — maybe even for dinner if we’re feeling particularly wealthy some time.

On my drive up to Mammoth Spring, I passed through Batesville, which prompted me to see if I’d added anything from the area to my Arkansas to-do list. The Old Independence Regional Museum was the only thing listed for Independence County, and after checking to make sure it was open on Wednesdays, I made plans to visit on my way home.

The museum is housed in a former armory, built for a unit of the Arkansas National Guard.

The young woman who worked behind the counter seemed surprised that someone showed up, and I was indeed the only visitor. It’s not a large museum, just two fairly large exhibit rooms and two small ones. But it’s put together well and it’s obvious someone cares.

Instead of the usual “this is what a general store would have looked like” display, they had a “this is what a gas station would have looked like” display.

There was information on the National Guard unit and on local businesses, and a special exhibit of wedding dresses. And of course, there was an exhibit about the pearl button industry in Arkansas. I think this is required of any museum anywhere near the Delta.

This time, however, they actually had some button blanks in the gift shop and I bought a small bag for my wall since my recent museum visits have made me the world’s leading expert. The blanks are the round bits punched out of mussel shells that are later polished to become buttons.

There was also a room telling about Batesville’s history during the Civil War when the two sides pretty much just took turns occupying the city. I haven’t included them all, but here are two examples.

They also had a telephone booth on display, as though that was an ancient artifact — which I suppose it is.

The young woman I’d met when I first entered was nowhere to be found when I wandered into the gift shop. As I was taking a package that contained a toy off the hook, it caught and I dropped it. She came running in a minute later asking if something fell. I just showed her the package in my hand and said that I’d dropped it. A few moments later, when I was removing a magnet from a display, I bumped a bracelet, which also fell. The girls said, “You’re kind of a klutz today, aren’t you.”

I didn’t respond, but I thought it was funny that she came right out and said it.

As local history museums go, this was better than many, in part because of the armory building itself. Certainly not a destination type of place, but worth a visit since I was driving through town anyway.

The fish hatchery is right next to the state park, located here because it uses water from the spring. There’s a fancy visitor center with a pool in front of it.

The pool is filled with carp and Alligator Gars, which really do look like alligators from some angles.

The inside was impressive also, with two large tanks and several smaller ones containing fish, turtles, and eel (it was inside a log and I couldn’t get a photo). The walls were lined with displays on the spring, the hatchery, the fish, etc.

I’d read on line that you could walk around the ponds and see the trout, but when I asked the guy in the gift shop what there was outside for visitors to see, he said nothing really, because of the flood. Apparently there was a huge flood in May, 2025 that covered the whole area, ruining equipment in the buildings and, presumably, letting the fish out into the river. They’re waiting for government funding to get things fixed again. Here’s an overview photo of the hatchery and park.

It took me about 20 minutes to see what there was to see, although it was definitely worth the visit since I was in the area.

This park is in extreme northern Arkansas near the Missouri border — literally 500 feet from the Missouri border. It seems more like a city park than a state park — there is no wild area or campground — just a lake, a gift shop that doubles as the state welcome center, a hydroelectric dam and power house, a train depot, some picnic tables, and a baseball diamond.

After talking with the overly enthusiastic young man in welcome center, I set off to see the spring. First I came upon a Civil War cannon that has nothing to do with Mammoth Spring or Arkansas. It was a gift from the Federal government because there was an annual reunion of Confederate and Union troops here — when there were any. They still have an annual festival although Civil War veterans no longer attend.

The spring shoots up seventy feet below the surface of a pond and cascades over two waterfalls into Spring Lake. It’s the 10th largest spring in the world with a flow of 9.78 million gallons of water per hour or 235 million gallons a day.

Here’s the view I took later from the observation deck visible in the trees in the center of the photo. The Welcome to Missouri sign is just beyond the gas station on the hill.

This is Spring Lake looking west from near the Train Depot. The power house and dam are on the left, the welcome center is in the middle, and the spring is hidden in the trees on the right.

The dam was originally built by the mammoth Spring Milling Company, a large concern that milled and sold wheat. Just one small cement structure is left. You can see what the mill looked like on this sign.

It was then purchased by a power company, which operated here until the early 1970s. Here’s what things looked like when that was here.

I’m not sure anything demonstrates the size of the spring so much as the view down Spring River. The spring is the sole source of water for the river. Mammoth indeed.

I came on a Wednesday because I wanted to see the Depot Museum, which is closed some days. But I had to wait around for an hour until the guide returned from lunch. I wandered about looking for birds and covering pretty much the entire park. It isn’t large.

I also wandered around and through the caboose parked next to the depot.

The depot was built on this spot in 1885 for the Kansas City, Ft. Scott & Memphis Railroad.

It’s set up with dioramas inside to give a feel for what it would have looked like in operation if all the people had been made of wax.

There were interesting displays on the walls, including one on the four or five train wrecks that have dumped cars into Spring Lake over the years.

The smaller section of the depot was the baggage area, and the guide unlocked that and let us in there too.

In all, I was at the park for something less than two hours, but I feel like I saw what there was to see. It was a pleasant place, but I’m unlikely to return since it’s almost three hours from my house.

When I decided to create my own Arkansas t0-do list, I thought it would be fun to find at least one attraction to visit in each county. For several counties, this proved to be a challenge. Sharp County was one of the challenges. I drove through much of the county on my way up to Mammoth Spring State Park and stopped to see what there was to see.

Corner Booth Restaurant in Hardy

It was around 10:50 when I stopped in. Obviously, they think of themselves as a breakfast place, and that’s what I probably should have ordered. But the menu was mostly omelettes and pancakes, and I just wasn’t in the mood. I ordered a cheeseburger and onion rings, and I can’t complain. The tomato was as large as the hamburger patty and overwhelmed it, but once I took it off, the burger was tasty. So were the onion rings. It just turned out that I wasn’t in the mood for that either. I should have bought breakfast.

I got the distinct feeling that if I could go back in time and visit the place in 1964, my experience would have been no different.

I drove eight miles east of Hardy to the Morgan’s Mill Battlefield marker.

In a nutshell, the Union Army was in Batesville, about 40 miles south of here as the crow flies. A small force (112 men) was sent to chase off a Confederate force. They found the enemy and attacked, but it turned out there were considerably more Confederates (around 300 men) than they’d realized. After some initial success, the Union force had to retreat, and they were chased for about 12 miles west towards Hardy before the action petered out. The Confederates had significantly more casualties (dead, injured, or captured) than the Union, but they kept the field, which makes them the considered winner — as is stated on the sign, which I thought was funny. It feels like more of a draw to me. To reinforce that the Confederates won, there’s a Confederate flag next to the marker.

There’s a mill nearby, although there’s no information about it on the site or on the internet that I can find. Whether it’s a reconstruction of Morgan’s Mill on the original foundation, a reproduction of what it may have looked like, or just somebody’s folly, I don’t know. My guess is that it was built by someone who wanted to turn this site into a tourist attraction and has since given up on the idea. But that’s just my guess.

On my way to the battlefield, I passed a store that caught my eye. I decided to stop on the way back, looking for one of those serendipitous moments that can turn good days into great ones.

It turned out to be two small rooms filled with cypress tables, clocks, and … things, just like the sign said. As I entered, I told the woman who greeted me that I very likely wasn’t in the market for anything but I thought I’d take a look. That set her off on a 10-minute monologue that covered subjects like how her husband was down pouring concrete, the neighbor who had his shed blown over in a storm and gave the wood to her husband who built another shed out of it, all the occasions for which I might “need” one of her products, and how they’d taken their flags down and hadn’t gotten around to putting them back up . I kept edging my way toward the door, trying to get away without being rude. She got up from behind her desk and followed me outside, still talking. She didn’t stop until I actually got in my car.

As for the store, some of the tables were cool, but out of my price range. The clocks were too gaudy for my taste. The cheesy Indian and animal pictures on the walls looked like decoupage crafts I used to make at summer camp in decoupage craft class — the kind of thing that covers the walls of Northwoods rental cabins. I didn’t buy anything.

And that was it for Sharp County. There were a couple promising antique stores in Hardy, but I had neither the time or money, so I didn’t stop.