Day off in Alton, Missouri

Following their concert at the Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, Texas on 18 September 1964, The Beatles were flown to the private ranch of Reed Pigman in Alton, Missouri, for a day of rest before the final show of their Summer 1964 US & Canada Tour. Pigman, a millionaire who owned American Flyers Airline — the company that had chartered the group’s Electra jet for the tour — offered his secluded 12,000-acre cattle ranch in the Ozark Mountains as a retreat between the penultimate Dallas date and the closing New York concert on 20 September.

The party — comprising The Beatles, road manager Neil Aspinall, press officer Derek Taylor, and Brian Epstein — flew by chartered Electra from Dallas to a deserted airfield near Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, in the early hours of 19 September. Pigman then piloted them in his own small seven-seater aircraft to his private airstrip at the ranch. The night-time arrival at Walnut Ridge did not go entirely unnoticed: three local teenagers spotted the unusual activity and word of The Beatles’ presence spread through the town over the weekend.

George Harrison, who had a deep aversion to flying, later recalled the unsettling journey from Walnut Ridge to the ranch with some vividness:

We flew from Dallas to an intermediate airport where Pigman met us in a little plane with the one wing, on top, and with one or maybe two engines. It was so like Buddy Holly, that one; that was probably the closest we came to that sort of musicians’ death. I don’t mean it nearly crashed because it didn’t, but the guy had a little map on his knee, with a light, as we were flying along and he was saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know where we are,’ and it’s pitch black and there are mountains all around and he’s rubbing the windscreen trying to get the mist off. Finally he found where we were and we landed in a field with tin cans on fire to guide us.

George Harrison

The group spent approximately 36 hours at the ranch, swimming, fishing, go-karting, shooting, and horse riding along the Eleven Point River in the warm autumn sunshine. The Beatles, though not devoted to sport, took readily to equestrian pursuits. Paul McCartney so enjoyed the riding that he rose at 7am on Sunday morning for a second attempt. Brian Epstein later described the stay as his happiest period of the entire tour — significant given that 19 September was also his 30th birthday:

For me – apart from the natural pride I felt in seeing the Beatles perform in such places as the Hollywood Bowl, the vast Red Rock Stadium in the Colorado mountains, and the wonderful State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis – my happiest time was spent on a ranch in the Ozark Hills in South Missouri. This was on September 19, my 30th birthday, and the day before our final American concert in New York. From Dallas we flew in our chartered Electra jet to a deserted airfield 70 miles from the ranch in the small hours of the 19th and our host, the millionaire owner of the airline, met us – the Beatles, Neil Aspinall, Derek Taylor and myself. He piloted us in his own seven-seater, twin-engined aircraft to his private air strip at the ranch. We spent that night, the whole of Saturday and the following night at the ranch, fishing, horse riding, and lazing about in the warm autumn sunshine, and it was a tremendous tonic for the Beatles, who though they had stood up to the tour very well, were very tired.

Brian Epstein – Mersey Beat, 1 October 1964

Ringo Starr, surveying the rolling hills of the Ozarks, reportedly remarked that the landscape reminded him of England. By mid-morning on Saturday, word had spread sufficiently that fans began arriving at the ranch; local ranch staff recorded that the first carload consisted mostly of twelve and thirteen-year-old girls from Alton. The group departed the following day to travel to New York for the final concert of the tour, a charity show at the Paramount Theatre on 20 September.

Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years

With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group.

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