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She lived in style in a 4,000-square-foot house on 194 picturesque acres.
Now home is a one-bedroom apartment.Lynda Arnold -- big hair, big eyes, big bright smile -- had money, once upon a time.Texas Lil's Dude Ranch in Northlake, southwest of Denton, was a popular and successful enterprise.Arnold hosted lavish corporate parties and welcomed tourists who wanted to spend a day experiencing the Old West. Visitors went on trail rides and ate barbecue and sat in the glow of a campfire as Alan Dryman strummed his guitar and crooned The Yellow Rose of Texas under a vast star-jeweled sky.Charlton Heston attended a Republican fundraiser at the spread.Willie Nelson performed in concert.Arnold's business was so good that in the late 1990s she borrowed $2 million to build a huge special event and conference center."Lil had it all out there," recalled Dryman, a longtime friend.Then terrorists slammed airplanes into those New York skyscrapers and, as Arnold put it, "Everything went to hell in a handbasket."Corporate bookings were canceled. Revenue dried up like a creek bed.In late 2004, Arnold lost the land she owned and loved for 27 years during bankruptcy.Six days after new owners took possession of the ranch, an arsonist torched three buildings on the property and Arnold was arrested -- "twice!" she said -- and taken to county jail in handcuffs.The Northwest school district recently bought the ranch and plans to use the land for an outdoor science classroom.Arnold works at Chicks Dig It, a shop in Flower Mound.She sells cowhide rugs and scented candles and a variety of rustic knickknacks."Then I go home and fall in bed," Arnold said with a laugh.The 71-year-old divorced grandmother and former Denton County justice of the peace also supplements her Social Security benefits as a wedding officiant. For $200, Arnold will don a black robe, or, if the bride and groom wish, she will dress in her signature Western hat, full-length fringed leather vest and cowboy boots.That life-altering turn of events six years ago left Arnold flat broke.And, she acknowledges, depressed."Lil was devastated," Dryman said. "The ranch was her baby. Her whole life."When she finally quit crying and looked in the mirror, she saw the core of who she is -- a get-back-up-and-do-something survivor.The fire didn't destroy her gumption. Or her love for the Lone Star State and its heritage."After all that happened, my kids told me, 'Dye your hair back dark. You're Lynda Arnold.'"A smile lit the painted face of this plain-spoken, truck-driving bodacious blonde."I'll always be Texas Lil," she proudly declared. "That's me. It's who I am."Up in smokeOn Nov. 4, 2004, Lil, still living at the ranch, was watching CSI on television.Her son and daughter, she remembers, were driving back from Austin, and had stopped for dinner at a restaurant prophetically called Up in Smoke.That night, the ranch erupted in flames.One of the burning structures was the handsome 38,000-square-foot conference center with a stage, three bars, meeting rooms and a white aspen ceiling. Fire damage was estimated at $2 million.
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