page_title: Dogpatch USA
section_title: Telcor ownership
hierarchical_section_title: Dogpatch USA / History / Telcor ownership
context_page_description: Dogpatch USA was a theme park located in northwest Arkansas along State Highway 7 between the cities of Harrison and Jasper, an area known today as Marble Falls. It was opened in 1968, and was based on the comic strip Li'l Abner, created by cartoonist Al Capp and set in a fictional village called Dogpatch.
  Dogpatch USA was a commercial success in its early years. Investors tried to parlay that success into a sister park, "Marble Falls," planned with a ski resort and convention center. The venture failed and led to the park's closure in 1993. The property then fell into disrepair. Parts of the park have been divided up and sold, and the main area has been bought, sold, and foreclosed on several times.
  A documentary about Dogpatch USA by Jeff Carter Productions was released in May, 2018.
context_section_description: In 1987, The Entertainment and Leisure Corporation (Telcor) purchased a 90% stake in OEI. The other 10% was retained by Herb Dunn, Lynn Spradley and Jerry Maland, residents of the area. Telcor, a corporation formed to buy and manage theme parks and headed by Melvyn Bell of Bell Equities, owned two other parks at the time, Deer Forest Park in Coloma, Michigan and Magic Springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Wayne Thompson, who was general manager of the park, became President of Telcor with Sam Southerland as Vice President. Thompson and Southerland were principal owners of OEI, and Southerland actually managed the finances for all three Telcor parks. Under Thompson's leadership Telcor made renovations and improvements, and a new ride called the "Space Shuttle" was added.
  In 1988, Wayne Thompson departed, and Lynn Spradley, a Dogpatch USA veteran of 14 years, became GM and managed the park through the 1991 season. During this time Spradley bemoaned the fact that Dogpatch USA was forced to spend much more per patron on promotional strategies to attract visitors than other theme parks, and that most kids did not know who the Li'l Abner characters were. By this time the comic strip had been out of print for more than 10 years.
  Dogpatch USA floundered in the face of stiff competition in the Telcor years, especially from Silver Dollar City, which duplicated most of what Dogpatch USA offered but on a grander scale, and was an hour's drive to the north. What Silver Dollar City lacked, the Ozark Folk Center (a fully subsidized state park) in nearby Mountain View provided, and neither park was wrapped in an outdated cartoon franchise.
  In 1991, after concerns from civic leaders that the park would not open for the 1991 season due to financial problems, it was indicated that if the park opened at all, it would open as a scaled down arts and crafts park.  General admission was eliminated; patrons paid for each individual attraction instead. Telcor decided to save the money that the Capp estate was receiving for use of the name and characters, and with that one of the most distinctive aspects of the park—the Li'l Abner theme—was completely dropped and the name changed to Dogpatch, Arkansas.
  The park was closed permanently on October 14, 1993.
caption: A faded billboard advertises free admission at Dogpatch, USA. The free admission policy was introduced in 1991.
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