9 Lost and Outlawed Experiences From an Old-Fashioned Arkansas Summer

An Arkansas summer once came with amusement parks, metal-tipped lawn darts, and rides in the back of a pickup truck.

Some of those experiences disappeared when businesses closed.

Others faded after new laws, recalls, and safety rules made people realize just how risky they were.

These are the old-fashioned summer experiences kids in Arkansas today can’t imagine.

1. Spending All Day at Dogpatch USA

Dogpatch USA opened along an Arkansas stretch of Highway 7 between Harrison and Jasper in 1968, built around the hillbilly characters from the Li’l Abner comic strip.

Kids rode a log flume, watched staged shootouts between costumed mountain men, and explored a park that drew roughly 300,000 visitors in its debut summer of 1968, a number the park reportedly never matched again.

Then the money ran out.

A sister resort, Marble Falls Resort and Convention Center, got built a few miles from the park, opening for the 1972 Christmas season with ski slopes, an ice-skating rink, and a 62-room inn.

It just never made money.

Mild Arkansas winters left the snow machines idle so often that owner Jess Odom shut the ski slopes down for good in 1977, after they’d lost $50,000 to $100,000 a year.

That debt dragged Dogpatch USA down with it.

New owners dropped the Li’l Abner name to dodge licensing fees, and Dogpatch USA closed for good on October 14, 1993.

The gates and rusted rides are still out there off Highway 7, but nobody’s buying a ticket.

2. Catching a Movie at the Drive-In Down the Road

Fayetteville’s own 112 Drive-In closed for good on August 27, 2022, after decades as a Northwest Arkansas summer staple.

Gone for good.

That closure left Arkansas with just two drive-ins standing.

The Kenda Drive-In in Marshall and the Stone Drive-In in Mountain View are still running on the same screens they opened with in the mid-1960s, and that’s the entire list now.

Drive-in theaters used to fill up Friday nights in Arkansas towns big and small, from Fayetteville to Fort Smith to Mountain View.

A kid who wants speaker-box nostalgia today has to plan a road trip for it.

3. Splashing All Day at Wild River Country

Wild River Country, an Arkansas water park in North Little Rock, hasn’t opened its gates for a single summer since 2019.

Not one.

The wave pool, tube slides, and lazy river along Crystal Hill Road that cooled off generations of kids just sit there now, empty.

A run of unpaid taxes and loan trouble forced the closure, and the water park never reopened for the 2020 season.

A developer bought the 30-acre property with plans for a new entertainment center, though nothing has opened there yet.

4. Riding Loose in the Back Seat

Family road trips across Arkansas once meant kids sprawled wherever they’d fit, with no seat belt required by law at all.

Arkansas didn’t pass its first seat belt law until 1991, and even then Act 562 only covered adults up front.

Kids stretched across the back seat, rode three-wide with no middle buckle, or curled up on the rear windshield deck for the drive to the lake.

Nobody buckled up.

Arkansas now requires anyone under 15 to wear a seat belt no matter where they sit in the car.

5. Playing Backyard Lawn Darts

Backyard cookouts across Arkansas came with a set of lawn darts, complete with heavy metal tips that stuck straight into the grass.

Kids tossed them at plastic rings across the yard, often barefoot, without a second thought.

Not for long.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission banned metal-tipped lawn darts nationwide on December 19, 1988, after the toy caused three deaths and thousands of emergency room visits.

Today’s version comes with a soft, rounded tip that couldn’t puncture a pool float.

6. Buying Cherry Bombs at the Fireworks Stand

Arkansas fireworks stands can't sell M-80s or cherry bombs anymore, since the federal government banned the sale of both to consumers decades ago.

That wasn't always true.

Fireworks stands along Arkansas highways used to stock M-80s and cherry bombs right next to the bottle rockets.

Those things packed enough punch to worry a parent, closer to a small explosive than a firecracker.

Today's Class C fireworks stands only sell what stays under the legal powder limit.

Nobody's lighting one under a coffee can this summer.

7. Diving Headfirst Down the Slip 'N Slide

Diving headfirst down a Slip 'N Slide was the whole point for bigger kids at Arkansas cookouts, sprinting across the yard before launching onto the wet plastic.

That's exactly what the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled the slide over in 1993, after several older kids and adults suffered broken necks and paralysis diving into it.

Regular sliding on your feet or backside never caused that kind of damage.

Just the dive.

Packaging today warns the slide is built for small children only, sliding feet first, never a headfirst dive.

Arkansas backyards still roll one out every summer, just without the running start.

8. Riding in the Bed of a Pickup Truck

Riding in the bed of a pickup truck down a gravel road was just how a lot of Arkansas kids got to the swimming hole.

Arkansas has banned it since 1937.

Nobody checked back then.

Troopers can now fine a driver $100 to $500 for letting a passenger ride in a space that isn't built for one.

A tailgate ride to the creek just isn't worth the ticket now.

9. Riding Every Fair Ride Without a Safety Inspection First

Every summer, a county fair rolled into towns across Arkansas with a Tilt-A-Whirl, a Ferris wheel, and a carnival crew that set it all up overnight.

Nobody checked those rides first.

Arkansas had no state law requiring an inspection of a single carnival ride until 1995 changed that.

Arkansas now checks every portable ride each time it's set up, and requires at least $1 million in insurance on it.

Big difference.