MARBLE FALLS, Ark.-- -

It's your chance to get a sneak peek at the abandoned Dogpatch USA theme park.  The new owner is inviting folks in for a look.  KY3 News got a preview and learned more about the new owner's plans.

Using weed-eaters and chainsaws, Charles Pelsor and his small team have been carefully uncovering history.  "Mother Nature really wreaked havoc.  But it was built so well.  The stone masons were awesome.  The engineering was really good.  They used a lot of oak, so the skeletal remains are pretty solid," says Pelsor.

Dogpatch, which opened in 1968, and was based on the comic Li'l Abner has been sitting abandoned for 21 years.  Pelsor, who has traveled to the Ozarks for business for years, couldn't stand it any longer.  He and a business associate bought the more than 400 acre property for a little over $2 million.

"I've driven around the top and just thought, what a gorgeous place to be letting just go dead," says Pelsor.  So the inventor of a spill-proof pet bowl, the Buddy Bowl, moved his operations to Arkansas and has started to fulfill his Dogpatch dream.  His vision is a village that artisans will call home, and will welcome everyone to visit.

"We'll have artists, we'll have blacksmiths, we'll have painters, we'll have sculptors.  The village will be open, and they'll be displaying their crafts and it'll be an eco-developments.  We'll have gardens, we'll have vineyards, we'll have orchards," says Pelsor.

He wants to clean up the stream, recommission the trout farm and mill, and he'll bring back the music.  "This is Cornvention center, and Reba McEntire played on the front of this at the very close in 1993," says Pelsor.  At Dogpatch's former train station, Pelsor says he would like to bring back the trains, but also make it a food station. 

He is inviting folks in for a Riverwalk, to get a peek at the progress and hear more about the plans.  "And they'll get to see more than when they sneak in.  I understand the fascination for the place.  I have the same fascination," Pelsor says.

He's excited to share his dreams.   "It's going to be a destination again.  It will be, absolutely," Pelsor says.

The Dogpatch tours are scheduled for December 6th and 7th from noon to 5 PM each day.  Visitors are asked to enter at the Highway 7 entrance near the Mill Creek Bridge.