Wiederkehr Wine Cellars

Johann Andreas Wiederkehr came from Switzerland to Altus with his wife, Katherine, in December 1880. He boarded with the priest of St. Mary's Church while he dug a cellar by hand into the hillside on St. Mary's Mountain and built a log cabin over it. By trade he was a shoemaker and leatherworker, and he made wine, first from wild berries and then from grapes he planted, for coal-mining towns that were eager customers. Winemaking in Arkansas rested on Swiss and German immigrants drawn by the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, which advertised for workers in Europe, and by the coal mines. Before them, an 1819 order gave the Cherokee exclusive title to the land between the White and Arkansas rivers, until an 1828 treaty removed the Arkansas Cherokee to Indian Territory.

Wiederkehr is the oldest operating winery in the state. During Prohibition it made wine for religious services, which the state allowed. Johann's son Herman and his grandsons Leo and Alcuin built it into the largest winery in the Southwest by the mid-1980s. The original cellars became the Weinkeller Restaurant in 1967, and the Weinfest, begun in 1963, is held each fall. The cellar was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

In 1975 the residents along Arkansas 186 petitioned unanimously to incorporate Wiederkehr Village so that Altus could not annex it. The village had 50 residents in 2020. The winery's gift shop and tasting room are open every day.