The Natural State doesn’t get a lot of attention.  It pretty much stays beneath the radar when one tries to call to mind places they would like to visit. Or, when one considers the origin of anything important; or even, when you want to make fun of people based on stereotypes associated with their locale, Arkansas doesn’t readily leap to mind. It is just quietly there.

Odd, when you think about it since Arkansas has given us a U.S. President – Bill Clinton, country music legends like, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Glen Campbell, and Lefty Frizzell. And was even the starting place for huge corporations Wal-Mart and FedEx, which opened for business in Rogers and Little Rock, respectively.

Then there are the Ozarks – not high, but really old. Modern estimates put parts of the Ozarks at 1.5 billion years old.  But, back in the day of William Hope “Coin” Harvey, they were thought to be the oldest on earth.

Harvey was a financier who chose a spot on the White River in Arkansas to build a resort called, “Monte Ne”.  He built a couple of hotels, (the ruins of only one still stands) an amphitheater with carved stone furniture (now submerged by the building of a dam to create Beaver Lake) and marvels of technology like the first indoor swimming pool. (gallery related)

Monte Ne was even the site of the 1932 Liberty Party’s National Convention. Harvey ran for president that year, but he never really had a chance. His hopes and dreams had been dashed long before then. The stock market crash of 1929 was really what finished him, though.

You see, ol’ Coin Harvey was something of a myopic visionary. Like so many of his time, W.H. was convinced that the human race was done for because of bankers. According to him, they manufactured debt by charging interest, which devalues money, the only fair representation of a person’s labor. Eventually, all the money would end up in their hands – specifically,  The Rothschilds.  Haha. What a crackpot! Right?

So, Harvey, acting on the principle that, “a man can’t just sit around” took action.

He began construction of Monte Ne in the early 1900s, to raise funds for his big project – The Pyramid.

You see, he was going to build this 130′ tall obelisk here at Monte Ne, with this capstone pyramid thing and fill it with all the collected knowledge of mankind and some modern wonders of technological advancement like, a Model T automobile, and a phonograph. Sort of a modern day Library of Alexandria.

He chose this spot because, according to his calculations, when the Ozarks finally crumbled to dust they would fill the area with silt, dust and debris and put his pyramid right at eye level for future archeologists.

Things were humming along nicely when in 1922 Howard Carter cracked open the tomb of King Tut.  A pyramid frenzy swept the nation. The masses flocked in droves to Monte Ne to throw cash at Harvey. (pic related)

Construction began and then…the Great Crash of ’29 brought it to a halt.

Thus, Monte Ne became…the Greatest Thing that Never Was.

And, in the immortal words of an anonymous artist, “I was here fuckers”

Smooch to Trixie :*