The History of Pontiac (Part 1)

This is the first post in a new series by Tim Morgan (owner, Pontiac Cove Marina). Stay tuned for more!

While building Lake Harbour Resort earlier this year, I couldn’t help but think about all the resorts that have come and gone in Pontiac. I also looked around and realized I had been in the recreation business longer than anyone else in the area, so I thought I would try to document what I could remember about the resort business here.

I referred to some old brochures I have as a source. It looks as though almost everyone who lived around here must have had a small resort. There were 19 members in the Pontiac Area Resort Association when this brochure was printed back in the early 1950s. Many of these have been sold off as small lake cabins. Others have just gone away. Very few are still here, and we now have a couple new ones.

By the way, the people swimming in the picture above were enjoying the "local swimming hole" back in those days, which was located just below the crossing at Gulley Creek along the bluffs on the west side. The gravel has shifted and since filled it up. (I learned to swim there myself.)

I thought the best way to find out who the old resort owners were would be to research the property deeds. I started by looking at the original land patents for the Pontiac area from County Road 617 to the state line. (The Price Place, Arkansas deeds will be a little harder to research as the courthouse for Marion County is in Yellville.)

Here is a list of land owners I found that had original land patents (you might recognize a few of them): Barner, Brown, Brundage, Cardwell, Caulder, Clasby, Easley, Ellison, Ford, Goolley, Hall, Hess, Herd, Holt, Johnson, Mahan, Martin, Porter, Price, Reeves, Shaw, Sisney, Smith, Speer, Turley, Turnbo and Willbanks. The earliest patent I found was for John Turley on July 1, 1852, but it's now covered by water. In fact, all of the earliest patents are now covered by water. I guess the bottom land was the most desirable. The first I found on dry land was for John Sisney on June 4, 1877, and it's now part of the property owned by the Nash family. The last land patent I found was for Isaac Mahan in 1912 and is also currently part of the Nash property.

There were a couple of interesting things I noticed. 1. Charles and Hannah Goolley patented 160 acres in 1879 near the headwaters of what is now called Gulley Creek (pronounced "Gooley" Creek). I always thought "Gooley" was the locals' pronunciation for Gulley, but I guess they knew all along. And 2. One of the oldest standing buildings that I know of in Pontiac is the original part of the Frontier Baptist Church, which sits on a tract that was patented by Jasper Turnbo in 1886 and was part of the original plat of the town of Pontiac, which included a church and a cemetery.

I plan on researching each of the resorts starting with Rod and Gun Resort, so keep checking the blog. And please feel free to add your own comments!

Capt. Tim Morgan (aka CTM)