Side trip to Cotter Springs

While traveling to Branson, Missouri we saw a sign for Cotter, Arkansas that was decorated with unique looking bridges. Of course, we got side tracked and had to go see them. Little did we realize that taking the road less traveled would take 2 MINUTES to get there and 2 HOURS to leave. Cotter Arkansas is advertised as the Trout Capitol, but there is so much more there to see and learn.

Our first stop after crossing the bridges into town was to hang a right and go under the bridges and into Big Spring Park. There we found a railroad memorial, read about Cotter railroad history, took a photo opportunity with the caboose, walked in the Cotter butterfly garden, and saw and several fishermen trout fishing along the banks. Travis got a quick picture taken with the railroad engineer and demonstrated how times have changed from stopwatches to cell phones. The train runs through town right beside to Cotter Trout Lodge every morning at 4:00 a.m.

By this time, we had decided to look for a local place to grab a quick lunch. As we backtracked up from under the bridges, we easily spotted the White Sands Cafe. We asked our waitress what the history was behind the restaurant. She told us that it was opened in 1957 by a couple who owned both the restaurant and the Cotter Trout Lodge. Ownership has changed hands, but the names stayed the same. She has worked in the restaurant for 18 years. Her younger sister and cousin were also working there that day and they are both still attending the local high school that she had graduated from. Our waitress didn’t look very old so she must have started working there in high school as well. The name White Sands Cafe is said to have come from the fact that the sand in the river was white at that time. She laughed and said she could not verify if that was an actual fact or not. About that time the “rowdy church crew” came in and she had to get back to work. Listening to the locals was interesting and not hard to do because as they didn’t have a volume control or filter on their conversations. You can learn a lot from eavesdropping on an older generation of mixed company.

Since she mentioned the local school was up the hill, we had to go see it. On the journey there we saw several cool houses and beautiful views. We made one last stop at the Cotter Bridge Market. It was run by a lady and her daughter who had moved to Cotter from Houston, Texas in December 2021. The ice cream is produced in Maine by a dairy farmer, and it was FABULOUS according to Travis. He is on a blueberry kick and eats anything that says it contains blueberries. I had Fly Fishing Fudge and it was good, but he still hasn’t stopped talking about his Blueberry!!!

I stood outside the Market just off the bride and took pictures at the intersection. What more could you ask for in a town? Everything was within walking distance, the cafe, the lodge, the bait shop with a skeleton on the outside bench, White River, and a coffee shop/market. It would be about a 2-mile hike but you could even walk to school. There you go folks, Cotter with a population of 921.

Our waitress said she now lives in Yellville, so we looped through there on the way back to our Branson Journey. It was only about 10 minutes down the road.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN