Big Lake Club

aka: Big Lake Sporting Club
aka: Big Lake Sportsman’s Club

The Big Lake Club, also known as the Big Lake Sporting Club or Big Lake Sportsman’s Club, was a private hunting and fishing club established near Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1886. Organized by prominent Arkansas sportsmen and businessmen, the club combined outdoor recreation with advocacy for the preservation of game and fish while serving as a gathering place for many of the state’s political, business, and civic leaders.

In the spring of 1886, forty-one men, many of them former or current members of the Pulaski County Sportsmen Club, incorporated the Big Lake Club in Little Rock with the intent to buy, improve, and sell land, or farm or lease land for farming. The profits from these ventures would, according to the organization’s constitution and bylaws, go “for the further purpose of preserving and protecting the game upon the lands, or the game upon or fish in the waters owned by the corporation, in order to furnish fishing and hunting grounds for the members of this corporation.”

Article II of the Big Lake Constitution outlines the purpose of the club as “to promote bodily and mental health, and therefore to preserve and protect the game and fish (for sporting purposes and recreation), strictly respecting the game laws of the state.” The club purchased 1,326 acres fourteen miles southeast of Little Rock along the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad tracks, including a cypress-surrounded semi-swamp named Big Lake. Initially known as Big Lake Station, the whistle stop on the Valley Route became Rottaken Station in 1905; a formal station never existed. In accordance with its constitution, the club built a cypress hunting lodge and several outbuildings on its land, roughly half a mile from the rail line. By 1906, land holdings had expanded to roughly 2,400 acres.

The founders set the capital stock at $10,000 with 400 shares at $25 each. Each member initially purchased four shares for $100, paid a $25 initiation fee, and received stock certificates. They had the option to sell or trade their stock. However, if they owned the stock, they paid a $25 annual membership fee to the club for facility upkeep and expenses. The club could contain no more than forty members and did not accept “professional shots,” or those who made a living from competitive shooting. Current members voted on membership applications. Any member who violated rules, such as selling game or fish taken at the club or “ungentlemanly behavior” (for example, drunkenness, fighting, or theft), was subject to expulsion after a hearing. Any male guests over the age of ten paid a $1 daily fee, and all female guests aged ten to eighteen paid 50 cents, except immediate club members’ family. However, the club barred all women, regardless of age, from its grounds from September 1 to April 1.

After incorporation, the members annually elected a board of directors with four officers to conduct the corporation’s business. James R. Miller, a former Confederate captain who was warden of the Arkansas State Penitentiary in 1886 and builder of the first cottonseed oil mill in Little Rock, served as the first president. Former Union colonel Herbert H. Rottaken, who was the club’s first vice president, was active in the Little Rock Democratic Party and had served in several positions, from tax assessor to Pulaski County deputy sheriff, as well as being involved in several business ventures such as liquor sales and mining. He would later die in a hunting accident on Big Lake grounds in 1908. The club’s secretary, Joseph Griffith, served as Pulaski County’s treasurer. William B. Worthen, the club’s first treasurer, was a seminal force in early Little Rock banking following the Civil War. By 1886, he had partnered with Edward Parker to develop Parker and Worthen, a banking and real estate firm. Other members of the first board were George Reichardt, who was president of the Charles F. Penzel Co. grocery business; land attorney John B. Jones; railroad man and merchant James A. Woodson (future mayor of Little Rock); and drug salesman James E. Gibson.

Throughout its existence, the club continued to attract many prominent men of Little Rock. The club roster included such figures as Little Rock mayor W. R. (Bill) Duley, businessmen D. R. Wing and C. E. Stephens, penitentiary manager and insurance man S. M. Patterson, contractor Zeb Ward, Sheriff William Kavanaugh, Anheuser-Busch distributor J. E. Mons, grocery and plantation supplier James Chapple, barrel and box maker R. H. McNair, grain and feed distributors George Niemeyer and Frank L. Royston, attorney and businessman D. H. Cantrell, and cotton merchant S. G. Dillard. Every elected Arkansas governor, Little Rock mayor, and federal legislator from 1890 to 1930 received a complimentary membership. After club members constructed a 50′ x 100′ pavilion near the lake, organizations such as the Little Rock Fire Department and the Women’s League used club grounds for their annual picnics.

During World War II, the club dissolved after members discovered arsenic in the sugar bowls. The club never determined who placed the poison in the sugar, and no deaths resulted from it. However, because of the mystery and declining membership, the remaining members voted to put the Big Lake Club on the market.

In 1946, Arkadelphia (Clark County) businessman Hugh Ross purchased the property for a family fishing camp for $20,000, or about $10 per acre. In 1951, the Ross family tore down the original cabin to build a new one on Lake Hamilton. Banker Ross Whipple bought the old club grounds from his cousin, Jane Ross, in 1996 and built a replica of the old clubhouse on its former site. It continues to operate as a hunting and fishing lodge for the Whipple family.

For additional information:
“Big Lake Club.” Ross Whipple Collection, History of Arkansas Hunting and Fishing Project. University of Central Arkansas Archives. Conway, Arkansas.

Big Lake Sportsman’s Club Records. Arkansas State Archives. Little Rock, Arkansas.

Waldon, George. “Historic Hunting Ground.” Arkansas Business 38, no. 48 (November 29, 2021): 1, 8–9. Online at https://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/ross-whipples-big-lake-remains-elite-getaway/ (accessed October 7, 2026).