HOT SPRINGS VILLAGE -- Village resident Don Dierks will be the guest speaker at the next meeting of the Friends of the Coronado Library at 4 p.m. Thursday in Room 6 of Coronado Center.
Dierks knew a little something about Hot Springs Village before he moved here with his wife, Anne, in 2002. The timber lands owned by his family's business included the land that eventually became Hot Springs Village. Dierks, a former officer and director of Dierks Forests Inc., worked on some of the timberland in the western part of the Village in 1957, according to a news release.
Dierks said in the release that when he and his wife moved to the Village, he came "full circle," which happens to be the title of his book, a narrative on the history of his family's business and the negotiations with John Cooper and Cooper Communities.
Of the 26,000 acres in the Village, 95 percent was originally owned by Dierks Forests. The Dierks family lumber interests began in 1880 in western Iowa, moved to Nebraska a year later, and by 1900 had expanded to 25 lumber yards and moved their headquarters to Kansas City. In February 1900, they purchased a complete sawmill operation in De Queen, which included 10,000 acres of timberland. From this small beginning, the company expanded throughout Arkansas, including 330,000 acres in the Mountain Pine area. Hot Springs Village was carved out of the Mountain Pine timberland.
FOCCL Presents features a local published author the last Thursday of each month January through October. The presentation is sponsored by Friends of the Coronado Center Library and is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served, and books will be available for sale.
Local on 07/25/2014