Bald Knob is a surprisingly good place to dine for a town of 2,500 residents. There's the Bulldog, a past inductee into the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame. There's Market Cafe, which has been around since 1946. Eating there is like stepping back in time. There's Who Dat's, which has my favorite Cajun cooking in the state. There's Farmhouse Cafe, which has solid country cooking.
Today's lunch is at Farmhouse with Barth Grayson, a former Bald Knob mayor. Among the benefits of writing this column is the chance to eat in lots of locally owned restaurants across the state while visiting with colorful characters. Grayson, who sells everything from firewood to hay at his Hillbilly Haystore, fits the bill.
Grayson loves to talk about Bald Knob (his family goes back multiple generations on both his father's side and mother's side), and he enjoys promoting his Grayson Farms. In 1995, he purchased the Bald Knob Banner and operated the newspaper for almost two decades. He has farmed (growing soybeans, wheat and hay), raised cattle and even promoted concerts from 1989-94 at the amphitheater in downtown Little Rock.
"My father was a teacher and school administrator," he says. "We also raised strawberries, blackberries and blueberries on our farm. But my heart was always in music. When I got out of high school, I began working security at Barton Coliseum in Little Rock. When I started farming in 1980, I also got into the music promotion business. I finally stopped doing concerts in Little Rock because I had a chance to refinance the farm in 1993. I took the money I was using for concerts and saved the farm. You know how important a family farm can be."
After lunch, Grayson takes me to buildings he owns in downtown Bald Knob. Those buildings are now filled with antiques and posters from past concerts. I walk through the town's former movie theater, The Joy, which was built in the 1940s and is now empty. Grayson hopes to one day have music performances downtown in what would be known as the Wagon Wheel Performance Hall.
We then head to Grayson Farms, where Grayson hopes people will watch the April 8 solar eclipse during what he's billing as Total Eclipse at the Knob.
"We have an amphitheater out here that will seat 4,000 people," he says of the farm, which is about two miles from Bald Knob. "We first did a music event here in 1980, and 350 people showed up. The bands performed on a hay trailer. We next did one in 1981 and had almost 1,000 people. Our best year was 1987. We had Foghat that year, and 2,500 people came. The next month, there were 4,000 for Nazareth and Molly Hatchet.
"Metallica played in 1983. Black Oak Arkansas came in 1982. We had up to 12 states represented at our largest shows."
Later performers at the farm included David Allan Coe, Dan Seals, Edgar Winter and Leon Russell. Grayson flew in the blues and rock band Canned Heat for an event he called Knobstock in 1988.
"My goal was to always have a Woodstock performer at Knobstock, but those guys are dying out," Grayson says.
Knobstock went away for a number of years before Grayson brought it back. Other events he hosts have names such as Arkansas Jam, Indian Summer Jam, Strawberry Jam and Garden Party Jam. Grayson brings in vendors who sell everything from shirts to crafts. There are also food trucks.
"I want to have festivals on multiple stages at the farm for at least the next decade," Grayson says. "I also plan to build an event barn."
Grayson shows me a large pond where people can pay for catch-and-release bass fishing. We walk around a former family home location (only a stone fireplace still stands). Grayson says he's the fifth generation of his family to operate this farm along Overflow Creek.
Grayson, 66, served four years as mayor. He finally won in 2018 on his fifth try. Rather than seeking re-election in 2022, he ran for White County judge and lost to Lisa Brown. Grayson says the music events on his farm bring significant business to Bald Knob's restaurants and motels.
Grayson told an interviewer soon after being elected in 2018: "I ran as a Democrat the first time because I was raised as a Democrat. Then I switched to independent. Then I decided to run as a Republican because that's how people relate in this area now. ... We're in a good location for Bald Knob not to have grown more than it has (the city dropped from 3,210 in the 2000 census to 2,522 in the 2020 census). My platform was to clean up Bald Knob because we had just let it go by the wayside.
"We have ordinances. We just need to enforce them. We have dilapidated houses. Some look like a Third World country. I want people to enter and leave Bald Knob with good tastes in their mouths. We're going to clean up this town and make it more appealing for future citizens."
Bald Knob can trace its beginnings to the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad's arrival in the 1870s.
What was known as the bald knob turned into a quarry in 1877 to provide railroad bed ballast. By 1880, 56 of the town's 221 residents worked there. Most of the quarry workers were from Ireland. The quarry later provided ballast for Jay Gould's Bald Knob & Memphis Railroad. Work at the quarry ended in the early 1900s.
The first strawberry association in Bald Knob was organized in 1910. The Strawberry Co. built the longest strawberry shed in the world along the railroad tracks in 1921. In the peak year of 1951, Bald Knob sold $3.5 million worth of strawberries and dubbed itself the Strawberry Capital of the World.
It's easy to see how Grayson's Strawberry Jam got its name.
Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Jamming at the Knob
9
0
10.03.2024
Bald Knob is a surprisingly good place to dine for a town of 2,500 residents. There's the Bulldog, a past inductee into the Arkansas Food Hall of Fame. There's Market Cafe, which has been around since 1946. Eating there is like stepping back in time. There's Who Dat's, which has my favorite Cajun cooking in the state. There's Farmhouse Cafe, which has solid country cooking.
Today's lunch is at Farmhouse with Barth Grayson, a former Bald Knob mayor. Among the benefits of writing this column is the chance to eat in lots of locally owned restaurants across the state while visiting with colorful characters. Grayson, who sells everything from firewood to hay at his Hillbilly Haystore, fits the bill.
Grayson loves to talk about Bald Knob (his family goes back multiple generations on both his father's side and mother's side), and he enjoys promoting his Grayson Farms. In 1995, he purchased the Bald Knob Banner and operated the newspaper for almost two decades. He has farmed (growing soybeans, wheat and hay), raised cattle and even promoted concerts from 1989-94 at the amphitheater in downtown Little Rock.
"My father was a teacher and school administrator," he says. "We also raised strawberries, blackberries and blueberries on our farm. But my heart was always in music. When I got out of high school, I began working security at Barton Coliseum in Little Rock. When I started farming in 1980, I also got into the music promotion........
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