From starting as a mini storage facility to becoming a mini golf course, Conway residents are on par for a good time when visiting Toad Suck Adventure Park.
Kim Slaughter and her husband John Miller own and operate Toad Suck Adventure Park. Slaughter, who now works behind the scenes doing marketing for the business, and Miller, who does maintenance and grounds keeping, bought the land with no intention of creating an entertainment facility.
“We were going to do storage buildings. We bought the land and were ready to do storage buildings,” Slaughter said.
Slaughter said that she and her husband both went through Conway Area Leadership Institute and learned through the Conway Chamber of Commerce that the lack of fun things to do was making it hard for the city to attract businesses to the area.
“Big companies didn’t want to come here and it would be hard for them to attract talent because there’s nothing to do. So, we decided that instead of building mini storages we would build something for people to do and so that hopefully would help the overall Conway economy,” Slaughter said.
Located just 15 minutes away from the UCA campus at 502 Highway 64 East toward Vilonia, the business opened in October 2021 and operated as an outdoor mini golf course, but has since evolved into much more.
The entertainment attraction offers both outdoor and indoor mini golf, gem- and fossil-mining stations and a western-themed burger and pizza eatery, Railway Restaurant.
Jessica Honaker, manager at Toad Suck Adventure Park, said the park offers activities that appeal to all ages.
“This is a place where even adults can come and just be a kid again,” Honaker said.
Honaker said while she loves getting to see kids come and have a good time, it’s also fun to watch the college kids enjoy things the park offers, like glow-in-the-dark mini golf, which has been a hit.
As the business has expanded, Slaughter has created a theme for the park, basing the attractions off the gold rush and old Western mining days. She found a mining sluice for sale online and knew she had to get it as an addition to the park.
“When I was first married, me and my husband went to a mining sluice. I think the closest one is in Branson. We don’t have any in central Arkansas,” Slaughter said.
The park has several fun activities to offer, but it also doubles as a learning experience.
“We know a lot of schools come here for field trips, so we have a couple of different educational areas. The mini golf will also have an education component,” Slaughter said.
Along the mini golf course, 17 signs are set up with educational information about the time period the course was based around.
When it comes to details, Slaughter has thought of them all, big and small.
She said when people mine for dinosaur fossils at the park, they receive cards that she designed with information about the dinosaurs they dug up.
She even handcrafted the recipes served out of the Railway Restaurant down to perfecting the sauce on the Round ‘Bout beef melt, which she says is a must-try.
Slaughter has lots of ideas and goals for the park, hoping to one day utilize all three acres of land.
“We’re not rich. We’ve literally invested our entire life savings into this. We have to do things slowly as we go along, so we have not taken one penny out of this. We’ve reinvested it and that’s how we’ve been able to expand,” Slaughter said.
The most recent expansion to the park is the Wild Kingdom gift shop which is set to open soon according to Slaughter. She also mentioned that some goals she has for expanding the park in the coming year include adding a golf simulator, an indoor mining sluice, a paintball-style gel blaster gun course and a crawler course.
Toad Suck Adventure Park is operating under extended hours during the holiday break and is featuring their “Haunted Holidays” themed indoor mini golf course through Jan. 15.