Mountain Home family new owners of Theodosia Marina Resort
Times photo/Jenny Yarger Wes and Catie Wood brought their daughters along Friday for the closing of their purchase of Theodosia Marina Resort from the Cook family. From left: Catie and Wes Wood with their daughters Clara, left, and Cora. Middle: Buyer's agent Joey Peglar of Peglar Real Estate and seller's agent Debra Schilling Smith of West Plains United Country Missouri Ozarks Realty stand next to Bret and Melanie Cook, Nadine Cook, and LaTasha and Mitch Cook.
This boat dock, built in 1952 by L.B. Cook and his son, Bill, launched the business that would become Theodosia Marina Resort, which the Cook family sold last week after 74 years of ownership to buyer Wes Wood of Mountain Home, Arkansas. L.B. and Bill were assisted in building the dock by carpenter Tom Curry, who had come with the Cooks from their home in Joplin to operate the boat dock, restaurant and motel concession they had been granted by the Corps of Engineers when Bull Shoals Lake was impounded.
Bret Cook and his wife Melanie, left, have been involved with Theodosia Marina Resort since their marriage in 1982. They’re shown in this undated photo with Bret’s grandparents, TMR founders Polly and L. B. Cook.
The original Cookie’s restaurant at Theodosia was a “little bitty place with cedar tables that would seat 12-14 people,” the late Bill Cook said in a 2022 interview. The Cooks’ concession with the Corps required a restaurant on the site, and they leased out the restaurant operation, beginning with operators Don and Oleta Speice in 1953, followed by about a dozen subsequent operators until the Cooks bought it in 1993, Bill said. This undated photo, which hangs in the Theodosia Village Hall, shows the restaurant after it was expanded. The photographer and the people pictured are unknown. The photo was technically edited for color adjustment by Theodosia resident Lidia Payne, who shared it with the Times. Cookie’s reopened Saturday after its annual winter break, now under Wes Wood’s ownership.
This postcard photo shows how Theodosia Marina Resort looked in the late 1960s, before the Cook family added Fort Cook RV park, which included a swimming pool and tennis court for resort guests.
Photo courtesy SkyDrones. This photo by Cody Reeves and Sky Drones shows the Theodosia Marina Resort during a high-water summer in 2017. The TMR motel is the long, brown-roofed building. Next to it, hidden by trees, is the popular Cookie's Restaurant. The campground was completely covered, but the Fort Cook RV park stayed busy throughout the season. New owner Wes Wood says most TMR operations will remain unchanged, except Fort Cook will become S'mores & Shores RV Park, and Cookie's may stay open year round, if details can be worked out.
Bill Cook, right, who helped launch Theodosia Marina Resort with his parents in 1952 and continued with it until his death in 2023, enjoyed fishing but rarely had time to fish locally during TMR's peak seasons. He’s shown here on one of his last Florida fishing trips with his son, Bret, who managed the resort with his wife, Melanie, in the last several years.
Mitch Cook, shown here with his wife, Latasha, and their family, will stay on at TMR temporarily during the transition. Their children, from left, Kentlee, Breklyn and Maverik, represent the fifth generation of the Cook family since L. B. and Polly Cook started Theodosia Boat Dock in 1952.
Another Ozark County landmark has changed owners.
On Friday, March 13, Nadine Cook and her family closed on the sale of Theodosia Marina Resort to Mountain Home, Arkansas, residents Wes and Catie Wood, marking the end of the Cook family's 74-year ownership of the business the late L. B. and Polly Cook launched on Bull Shoals Lake in 1952.
The TMR transaction follows the Feb. 13 sale of the 114-year-old Harlin House in Gainesville by Chris Harlin, representing the Harlin family. The well-known structure is being adapted for use as an events center by new owners Mike and Heather Gardner, who also own Antler Package and Pizza and Ozarks Wifi in Gainesville and several other area businesses.
Wes Wood, 41, is a Mountain Home Realtor who has lived in this area since his family moved to the Arkansas Ozarks when he was in seventh grade. He graduated from Flippin (Arkansas) High School and what is now Missouri State University at Springfield. He is one of the partners who own the Big Creek Golf Course in Mountain Home. Wes told the Times he plans to step away from his real estate work to become a full-time, hands-on owner of the resort.
The Woods have two daughters: Clara, 12, and Cora, 7. They live near Mountain Home and keep a boat at their private dock on Bull Shoals. For now, Wes says he will commute to Theodosia so his daughters can stay in their current home and remain near their friends without having to change schools. “It’s a 40-minute drive” from his house to Theodosia, he said. “Not bad.”
The girls, who attended the sale-closing meeting last Friday with their parents, are excited about becoming owners of the resort. Clara is already hoping to earn money from summertime jobs there, Wes said.
No major changes planned
After closing papers were signed Friday, the Woods took ownership of the resort’s 215-stall Theodosia Marina with gift shop, 20-room motel, Cookie’s Restaurant, a 95-unit RV park (Fort Cook) and several other individual lodging facilities plus rentals such as boats, boat-accessories and water-sports equipment.
Cash Saver grocery store and the nearby Theodosia Marine Sales and Services, owned by the Cooks, were not included in the sale.
The marina’s operating permit is controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees Bull Shoals Lake. TMR is on land leased from the Corps, which adjoins the Corps-managed campground at Theodosia.
The resort was listed last year by Gainesville-based Debra Schilling Smith, with West Plains United Country Missouri Ozarks Realty, for $3.5 million. The actual sale price was not disclosed but both Schilling and the Woods said it sold for a little less than that. Joey Peglar of the Peglar Real Estate group represented the Woods as buyers’ agent.
The purchasing entity is Theodosia Resort, Inc., but the resort will continue doing business under the longstanding name Theodosia Marina Resort. Names of the various parts of the property will remain unchanged, Wes said, except for the Fort Cook RV Park, which will be renamed S’mores and Shores RV Park. The park has long been popular with long-term renters, he said, and he hopes to bring in more short-term visitors as well.
To the relief of many Ozark County diners, the Woods said the popular Cookie’s Restaurant, which has been closed since mid-November on its annual winter break, would reopen Saturday, March 14, and it did. Longtime restaurant employee Whitney Welch, who has worked at Cookie’s alongside her aunt, manager Melanie Cook, will become the new manager, Wes said, and the restaurant will continue operations as usual, open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Bret and Melanie Cook’s son Mitch, great-grandson of TMR founders L.B. and Polly Cook, will continue working at the resort through the summer, focusing on the marina, Melanie said.
The resort’s main phone number connecting to all parts of the resort (417-273-4444) and its website, tmrbullshoals.net, remain the same. No major changes are planned for any parts of the resort in the near future, except that Cookie’s might stay open year-round, if details can be worked out “and Whitney wants to,” Wes said, and special services might be added, such as boat detailing at the marina.
Wes said he wants to keep the resort’s small town, friendly, folksy vibe that makes the resort and adjoining campground a busy, charming place “where families can come with their kids and have a good time”– and maybe let the lake activities lure the youngsters away from video games and cell phones.
“The Cooks are doing such a good job creating that good feeling. I really like what they’ve done,” he said. He wants the resort to continue thriving with the same easy, laid-back lifestyle that has brought lake-lovers to TMR since the Cooks started business there in 1952. It has an attractive appeal Wes has enjoyed whenever he and his family and friends have boated from the Arkansas side of Bull Shoals Lake to dock at Theodosia Marina and walk up the hill to eat at Cookie’s.
A 74-year history of setbacks and success
The old village of Theodosia no longer existed when L.B. and Polly Cook moved there in 1952 with their children, Barbara, a high school sophomore, and Bill, who was “just shy of 11,” Bill said in a 2022 Times story commemorating the family’s 70 years of business there. The stores, mill, post office and homes that had stood there for decades beside the Little North Fork of the White River had been demolished or moved to higher ground in the village of Lutie, next door. The Theodosia village site would soon be inundated when Bull Shoals Dam’s completion in Arkansas would cause the White River’s feeder streams, including the Little North Fork, to back up and flood, creating Bull Shoals Lake.
In 1950, the Corps of Engineers, which manages the lake and controls access to it, announced the letting of 12 bids for “concessions” that would operate marinas and related facilities on the lake when it filled.
L.B. Cook, an avid outdoorsman, was the son of a prominent Joplin dry goods merchant. He could have stayed in Joplin and operated his family’s successful Cook’s Mercantile store. But he wanted to move out of the city and find an easygoing job closer to nature where he had more time for hunting and fishing, Bill Cook said in the 2022 story. “He wanted a little fish camp,” Bill said, “a little boat dock with rental boats you rented to fishermen. That way he figured he would have plenty of time to fish, himself.”
L.B. was hoping to win the bid for that kind of small concession at Forsyth or Beaver Creek, Bill said. But when the bids were let in March 1952, L. B. was awarded a concession for Theodosia, a site that required not only a boat dock but also a motel and restaurant too. “Nowhere else were all three required,” Bill said. “It wasn’t what he wanted. But it’s what he got.” Bill added later, “We didn’t have a clue what we were doing.”
On June 14, Bill and his dad drove from Joplin to Theodosia in L.B.’s 1948 Dodge DeSoto. Polly and Barbara would join them a few weeks later. They found what the Corps had designated as a “campground” but was really “just a dirt road in a little circle drive,” Bill said. A “one-hole” outhouse stood in the distance.
Bill said he and his dad couldn’t even see the water from the campground. They worked their way through weeds and reeds “taller than my head” to get down to the river’s slowly rising water. To the north, the new “million-dollar bridge” that would cross the lake was being built. The huge support piers towered above the old Route 80 bridge below it that still carried traffic. The new bridge, finished in 1953, still functions today, carrying what is now Highway 160 traffic, but the Missouri Department of Transportation announced last year that the 73-year-old bridge is set to be completely replaced sometime in the next few years.
By early September 1952, Bill and his dad had finished the dock, with the help of local carpenter Russell Earnest Blankenship and Joplin carpenter Tom Curry, who had come with them in June. The dock consisted of an office with 10 stalls to accommodate 20 rental fishing boats. The structure floated on metal barrels.
By early spring 1953, Bull Shoals Lake had reached its power pool (654 feet above sea level) for the first time ever, and the Theodosia Boat Dock opened for business.
L.B. had ordered new 14-foot Lone Star boats plus a shipment of nine Johnson five-horsepower motors and one 10-horsepower model. The motel was nearing completion, the little restaurant was finished and sub-leased to competent operators, and word was spreading around the state that Bull Shoals Lake offered some great fishing.
Everything was falling into place, the future looked bright and the Cooks felt confident they had made the right choice in becoming lake-concession operators.
Then things went sideways.
The drought of summer 1953, added to the dam pulling in lake water to generate electricity, “put us in the mud,” Bill wrote in a 2011 Times column.
Then, around Christmastime that year, a big storm rolled in and flooded the lake, and the dock washed away.
The resilient Cooks refused to give up, and in 1956, they finally had their first good year in business – until Labor Day weekend, when the motel burned.
They immediately rebuilt the motel, and “by spring 1957, business is booming,” Bill said in the 2022 story. Sportswriters around the state started noticing Theodosia. One of them, St. Louis Globe-Democrat columnist George Carson wrote, in his March 3, 1957, column, “The Theodosia area is one of the finest fishing spots in the state. . . . L. B. Cook, who operates the boat dock, is one of those genial fellows who tries to please everyone, and he is most helpful in aiding anglers in where and how to fish.”
Again, it looked like the Cooks’ nightmarish start-up problems were over.
Then with heavy rains falling, the lake level started rising. And it didn’t stop.
The Cooks had experienced drought and low water levels, but now the rain kept falling. Staying ahead of the fast-rising water of Bull Shoals was a new challenge. The boat dock had to be moved as the water rose, and the walkway and cables had to be repeatedly extended. The water got so high, boats couldn’t pass underneath the new Theodosia bridge. It wouldn’t get that high again for 54 years, until 2011.
Bill Cook would sum up his family’s first five years at Theodosia by saying, “We went dry, washed away, burned out and flooded.”
Becoming Theodosia Marina Resort
But still, the Cooks didn't give up, and through all of those first-time setbacks, they learned how to cope with the changing weather conditions and their resulting lake levels, plus a wide variety of other challenges. Meanwhile, L. B. was demonstrating a mastery of marketing, staying in touch with outdoor columnists and putting on workshops in St. Louis and other cities. Everywhere he went, he promoted his family's offerings on Bull Shoals Lake at Theodosia.
He also worked to bring back the old name Theodosia for the town bordering the lake, and in August 1960, he and those working with him succeeded. The town of Lutie, and the Lutie post office, officially became Theodosia. Only the school and the cemetery retain the name Lutie today.
As the years passed, the Cooks constantly looked for ways to expand and improve their business, and as their business grew, they changed the humble name Theodosia Boat Dock to the weightier label Theodosia Marina.
Next, as they developed the RV park, added a swimming pool and tennis court and built more lodging facilities and other amenities, they put "resort" in their business's name to encompass all the comforts and attractions at Theodosia Marina Resort.
The result has been a happy clientele of faithful regulars and eager newcomers who come from all over the Midwest to spend time at TMR. In the peak summer season, the population of the resort and its bordering areas may swell to a thousand residents or more. Bill Cook often pointed out that with so many people, Theodosia temporarily becomes Ozark County's largest town each summer.
'We're all sad but happy'
The business L.B. and Polly Cook built up from nothing in 1952 is now in its 74th year and still going strong. But, as of Friday, it is no longer owned by the Cook family.
Bill Cook grew up working alongside his parents. In 1958, during their senior year at Gainesville High School, he married classmate Nadine Bushong. They worked together at the resort with the elder Cooks while raising their three children, Bret, Ben and Becky.
In 1980, L. B. stepped back from the day-to-day operations, and Bill stepped into the managing role. L. B. Cook died in 2002 at age 89, and Polly died the following year at the same age. By then, Bill and Nadine's children were adults and able to provide effective help to Bill and Nadine in running the resort.
As the resort grew, Bill and Nadine slowed down with age. They always stayed involved with TMR but gradually handed over most resort operations to their son Bret while his wife Melanie managed the restaurant. Ben has managed the family's Theodosia Boat Sales and Services for many years, and his wife, Vikki, has managed Cash Saver grocery store. Ben and Vikki continue in those jobs today as those businesses were not included in last week's sale. Bret and Mel's son Mitch is staying on temporarily during the transition.
The Cooks' daughter Becky married and moved away but later divorced and moved back to Theodosia in 2017. Sadly, she died in 2021.
When TMR celebrated its 70th year in operation in 2022, Bill and Nadine were both 80, and both were still involved with the resort, although they had moved to a farm at Thornfield, and Bill had been diagnosed with leukemia. He died in November 2023.
The family's decision last year to put TMR up for sale was a difficult one emotionally but necessary physically. Bret Cook has been managing the resort for several years now despite mobility issues caused by severe back problems. His wife, Melanie, has managed Cookie's restaurant many years, too, despite being a cancer survivor. It was time to step down.
"We're all sad but happy," Melanie said last week.
It's comforting to them to know their family is handing over the business to another local-area family, the Woods, who appreciate the resort's deep roots in the community and the county, and who are also familiar with Bull Shoals Lake and its potential challenges. It's a family-to-family transaction that they believe will keep the business thriving into its next 74 years.