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Title: The Eureka Springs Story

Author: Otto Ernest Rayburn

Release Date: March 19, 2019 [EBook #59099]

Language: English

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                        The Eureka Springs Story


                                   BY
                          Otto Ernest Rayburn


                        DIAMOND JUBILEE EDITION
                                  1954


                    Drawings by Gloria Morgan Bailey


                          Original Printing by
                          THE TIMES-ECHO PRESS
                        Eureka Springs, Arkansas


                       Second Printing, 1982, by
                         Wheeler Printing, Inc.
                        Eureka Springs, Arkansas


                              To my friend
                              SAM A. LEATH
                     who has served Eureka Springs
                         as guide and historian
                            for more than a
                             half century.




                                   I
                  LEGENDS OF THE MAGIC HEALING SPRINGS


Legendary lore concerning the visitation of northern Indian tribes to
what is now Eureka Springs, Arkansas is badly mixed and it is difficult
to separate truth from fiction. It is difficult to prove the
authenticity of a legend. The stories we hear may have original pedigree
or they may be mere fabrications by imaginative writers. In history, we
have something to tie to, but this is not always the case with
traditional lore that is handed down by word of mouth from generation to
generation. It may be true or it may be a hoax. Tribal lore from the
Indians themselves is usually accepted as authentic for the redman was
noted for his veracity and had the habit of repeating the tale without
variation, but in recent years numerous legends have been “cooked up” by
white men and passed off as legitimate tradition. Stories are told that
the Indians never heard of. The reliable legends are those that come
from the Indians themselves, properly documented.

There are at least three legends of visits of redmen to the “Magic
Healing Springs,” as they called them, before white men settled the
region. They go back about four hundred years and each of the stories
has similar motif. The beautiful daughter of a famous chief, living in
the cold north, is stricken with some dreadful disease or has lost her
eyesight. The chief tries all the medicine men available but without
success. He hears of the healing springs far to the south and treks
thousands of miles through the wilderness to get his daughter to the
coveted spot. The girl bathes in the water and is healed. Sometimes she
falls in love with a handsome brave of the local tribe and marries him.
In one case the girl is Mor-i-na-ki, daughter of a Siouian chief.
Another story features her as the daughter of Red Cloud, a Delaware.
Still another gives Noawada of the Dakotas as the chief and his daughter
is Minnehaha (Laughing Water). Each of these legends runs about the same
gamut of hardship and privation and ends with the same climax of
healing. It is easy to assume that they all originated from the same
source, but this may not be true. The historian finds in them sufficient
evidence to conclude that the northern Indians did make long trips to
the springs, and that the water was widely known for its curative
properties and healing powers. But there is no way of separating the
chaff from the whole grain except from documented material.

W. W. Johnson, M. D., who began his practice of medicine at Eureka
Springs in 1879, the year the town was named, says, “The traditional
history of the springs dates back to the days of Ponce de Leon, who had
sought for a fountain of youth where he and his followers might bathe
and quaff the waters and their age disappear, and they be clothed with
the habiliments of youth.” He goes on further to say: “The Cherokee
Indians, when in their southern home—previous to their removal to the
Indian Territory—had a tradition that in the mountains far to the west
of their country, and to the west of the Father of Waters, there were
springs that their fathers visited and drank of their waters, and were
healed of their maladies. This tradition was handed down from one
generation to another. After the removal of the Cherokees to their
present home in the Territory, many visited these springs, camped here,
and drank these waters. Since the discovery by the white men the writer
has conversed with members of the Cherokee tribe, and learned that these
were the springs referred to in the tradition.”[1]

One basic legend that appears to be a part of most of the traditional
accounts is that of the carving of the basin at the Indian Healing
Spring, now called Basin Spring. J. M. Richardson in a letter to Powell
Clayton of Eureka Springs, dated May 18, 1884 at Carthage, Missouri,
says:

“It was in the summer of 1847 when a conversation took place between
White Hair, principal chief of the Great and Little Osage Indians, and
myself at the office of the agency on Rock Creek (now Kansas) relative
to lead in Missouri and a celebrated spring in the mountains. The chief
said when he was a boy the Osages took lead out of the bottom of the
creek and smelted it with dry bark, and then run it into bullets. He
stated that where the lead was found was in the prairie and in Missouri
and two days’ travel from that place in the mountains was a spring the
Indians visited for the purpose of using the waters and getting cured.
He said he never knew an Indian ‘go there with sore eyes and drink the
water and wash in it for a whole moon but what was cured.’”

“The chief said Black Dog’s father, when a boy, scoured out a smooth
hole in the rock out of which they would dip the water with cups; that
the hole was about the size of the tin basins the white people washed
in. The Indians, supposing the spirit of the great Medicine Man hovered
round the spring, never camped near it, and never had any fighting near
it. In considering Black Dog’s age, I conclude the basin was scoured out
seventy years previous to the conversation. The chief said the water
spread out over the rock and the hole was scoured in the rock to
concentrate the water, and at times it was used to pound corn in to make
meal, and that I would know the spring by the hole in the rock. The
circumstance had entirely faded from my memory, but in visiting Eureka
Springs in 1880, the conversation with the chief recurred to my mind. I
felt sure that was the great Indian spring.”[2]

The vast amount of legendary lore about Eureka Springs proves at least
one thing. The spring water was highly rated by the Indians for its
curative properties. Their numerous trips from various parts of the
country to visit this mecca is sufficient evidence that they found what
they were looking for.




                                   II
                        THE STORY OF MOR-I-NA-KI


The tradition, that great healing springs existed far to the south of
the land in which they lived, appears to have been wide spread among the
Indians of the North in early times. Travelers, who visited these redmen
in the early part of the nineteenth century, discovered legends that
told of these springs and their miraculous cures. One of these
travelers, Colonel Gilbert Knapp of Little Rock, Arkansas, while on an
exploring expedition in the copper-mining region of Lake Superior, met a
French half-breed who told him an interesting story. The exploring party
was camped on an island near Cape Kenewaw, collecting agates and other
beautiful gems which were found in abundance. One night, as they sat
around the camp fire telling tales, the French half-breed, Jean Baptiste
by name, told a story which Colonel Knapp thought referred to Eureka
Springs. Here is the story:

“My mother, whose name was Mor-i-na-ki, or the beautiful flower, was the
daughter of the greatest of the Sioux chiefs. My father, Louis Baptiste,
was an agent of the Hudson Bay Company, whose duties required him to
travel with the sledge trains to the encampments of the Indians to
purchase furs and peltries. On one of these excursions he met my mother,
with whom he became enamoured. He induced her, with the consent of her
father, to accompany him to a trading post of the company, where they
were married by a Catholic priest. My mother has told me of many of the
traditions of my people. One of these relates to the journey of a large
number of the tribe to the far-distant south-land. It was many years
ago, when one of the winters was so prolonged and severe that many of
the tribe died of cold and starvation. One of the chiefs induced the
remainder of the people to go with him to the south in search of food.
After traveling at great distance they reached the forks of a
rapid-flowing river, where the climate was mild and the game abundant.
The country was in possession of a tribe who cultivated corn and many
kinds of vegetables. These Indians had large quantities of food and
grain stored and were friendly to the visitors of the north-land, and
supplied them abundantly from their stores. With all the advantages of
this beautiful region, the Sioux were not happy, because the daughter of
their chief, who had brought them to this country, was stricken with
blindness and lameness and could not walk. When the medicine-men of the
tribe who possessed this country heard of the sickness of the
stranger-chief’s daughter, they came to his lodge and told him of a
spring of water flowing from the side of a mountain, only two days’
travel distant, whose water being drank would remove the sickness and
restore sight to the blind. They said the water passed through great
beds of flint, and in its passage it drew the fire from the rocks, and
it was this fire in the water which killed the pain and disease. On
receiving this information he had his afflicted daughter, with all his
people, moved to the vicinity of the wonderful spring. They camped near
where the spring was situated, and at this spring was a basin in the
rock where they got the water that cured the chief’s daughter. The chief
and his people stayed at the spring six moons, when the sick maiden was
restored to sight and health. After her recovery the chief returned to
his northern home, and ever afterwards the tradition of the south-land
spring was carefully preserved in the tribe.”[3]

L. J. Kalklosch, reporting on this legend, gives this interesting
addition:

“When the chief of the tribe who possessed the country learned that the
Sioux had camped at the healing spring, he sent a number of his braves
with stone hatchets to cut out basins in the rock at the spring for the
convenience of the Sioux and his people. These men with their flint
hatchets cut one basin below the spring to hold the water for drinking,
and another just below for the purpose of bathing. The basins they
covered with bark tents. After bathing in the waters and drinking great
quantities of it, the chief’s daughter’s limbs were restored to their
natural condition, and her blindness was entirely removed, her eyesight
being as bright and strong as ever.”[4]

A booklet on “The Eureka Springs”, published by the Matthews, Northup
and Company of Buffalo, New York in 1886 says that the Basin Spring was
so called because of a peculiar bowl-shaped cavity in the rock. Twelve
feet farther down the hillside was originally another basin about five
feet in diameter, which was used for bathing purposes. According to this
account, this basin was destroyed by overhanging rocks falling upon it.
The two basins in the rock, which were present when the town was first
settled, are without doubt the ones referred to in the extract of the
legend given above.

A slightly different version of the legend of Mor-i-na-ki is given in
Allsopp’s “Folklore of Romantic Arkansas.” This version goes into detail
regarding the habits and customs of the Osage Indians who inhabited the
area at that time. In this version, the Sioux knew of the tradition of
the healing spring before they left their northern homeland and made the
trip specifically to bring the princess to it.[5]




                                  III
                        “THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH”


Legend says that healing springs in a far-away land were known in Asia
2,000 years ago and that the tradition was later carried to Europe where
it captured the imagination of certain gentlemen in Spain. L. J.
Kalklosch gives a report from contemporary writers as follows:

  “Before the Christian era, one Ferdinand Levendez, who was in the
  Roman service for a time, made the acquaintance with a barbarian
  prisoner by the name of Malikoroff, from whom, in the course of their
  chats, he learned the story of a fountain, the virtue of whose waters
  would restore old age to the vigor of youth and of which, if anyone
  drank continually, he would never die. He (Malikoroff) had it from a
  Tartar Chieftain under whom he once served.

  “The chief told him the fountain was far off in the interior of a
  great island almost inaccessible on account of the snow and ice to be
  encountered in reaching its shore, but which, on being reached, it
  spread out into a vast world, most of which had a pleasant climate.

  “Levendez told many of his friends this wonderful story upon his
  return to Spain and the tradition lived in the fancy of many an
  aspiring and ambitious Castillian, even to the time of Christoval
  Colon when it received a new impetus in the mind of Ponce de Leon when
  he heard the same story told to him by the Mobilian Indians, on his
  first visit of exploration in Florida. This Indian chief said that he
  had the story from a Shawnee prisoner taken in battle, and that the
  fountain was far to the northwest, and after crossing a great river.
  Says the credulous Mobilian:

  “‘I have not seen the fountain myself; I only know that the Shawnee
  told me so, and he said that his father had drunk of the water, and
  that he was restored to perfect health and activity after being almost
  double with pains in his bones for six moons, and he proposed to guide
  me to the spot for his liberty, but the voice of the other chiefs was
  against me, and he was put to death. The story may have been true: I
  found all else true that he told me.’

  “Ponce de Leon set out in search of this fountain but he did not even
  reach as far as the Great River the Shawnee said must first be crossed
  (its width four times as far as he could shoot with an arrow); being
  wounded by the natives, he died in the summer of 1512, the remnant of
  his forces returning to Cuba.

  “Now, is there not corroborating evidence of these stories, though
  reaching back 2,000 years, to convince us that the same spot and the
  famous fountain lately discovered in Carroll County, Arkansas is the
  identical fountain of the ancient tradition? Though it may not do all
  the Tartan chief claimed for it, it does seem to do what the Shawnee
  asserted it would do, and even more, restoring hair to bald heads, and
  the gray hairs of age to the color they bore in youth.”[6].




                                   IV
               THE DISCOVERY OF THE INDIAN HEALING SPRING


The man largely responsible for the starting of a town at “the springs”
in Carroll County, Arkansas was a pioneer doctor named Alvah Jackson. He
was a man of many talents. He not only practiced medicine but was also a
great hunter and trader. In 1834 he was shipping bear oil down the White
River from Oil Trough in Independence County, Arkansas. The town of
Jacksonville was named in his honor.

During his hunting trips and trading expeditions into the hills, the
doctor contacted many Indians. They told him of a healing spring hidden
deep in the mountains that was a sacred spot to the redmen. Jackson
began searching for that spring. From the information secured the spring
flowed through a basin carved in a table of rock and was located near
the head of a small creek with two prongs which flowed into White River
eight miles away.

Dr. Jackson spent twenty years looking for this spring. In 1854 he
decided that he had found it in what is now known as Rock Spring in
north central Carroll County near Kings River. He immediately moved his
family there. But he was not satisfied that he had found the coveted
spot.

One day in 1854 while hunting in the mountains with his twelve-year-old
son, his dogs “treed” a panther in a rock cliff near the head of Little
Leatherwood Creek. The boy was afflicted with sore eyelids and while
helping dig for the panther, got dirt in his eyes. The doctor told him
to go down the hillside to a spring, to rake the leaves away, and wash
his eyes. The boy did as he was told and returned to tell his father
that the spring flowed through a basin apparently carved by hand. The
doctor hurried down to take a look. He recognized it as the Indian
Healing Spring he had been searching for these twenty years. (This is
the Basin Spring with its carved basin in the Basin Circle at Eureka
Springs.)

Each day following the discovery Dr. Jackson rode horseback from his
home at Rock Spring and filled his saddlebags with bottles of water from
the healing spring. His son bathed his eyes in this water and they
healed rapidly. Then the doctor began peddling the water to neighboring
towns in Arkansas and Missouri, selling it under the label, “Dr.
Jackson’s Eye Water.”

When the Civil War broke out Dr. Jackson refused to take sides. He
established a hospital in the Old Rock House that had been a hunter’s
rendezvous for many years, and built a crude cabin on the bluff above
it. It was open to all who needed treatment, but patronized largely by
disabled Confederate soldiers. When the battle of Pea Ridge was fought
twenty miles away in March 1862, this rustic hospital was overcrowded.
(The Old Rock House may be seen today at the rear of Ray Harris’ Feed
Store at the junction of Spring and Main Streets, Eureka Springs. The
Everett Wheeler home is at the site of Jackson’s cabin.)

The old Rock House was both hospital and bath house. The doctor took
hogsheads and split them into halves for bath tubs. He ordered his
patients to drink the spring water until it ran out of their mouths.

Cora Pinkley Call, in her book “Stair-Step Town,”[7] tells how the
curative waters of the old Indian Healing Spring were heralded to the
world and how it brought thousands of people from all parts of the
United States to use the water for drinking and bathing. Judge L. B.
Saunders, of the Indian Territory, had moved his family to Berryville in
the seventies in order that his son, Burton, might attend Clark Academy.
The judge had a leg sore that doctors had pronounced incurable. He was a
friend of Dr. Alvah Jackson and frequently hunted with him. The doctor
invited the judge to try the water at the Indian Spring for his leg. A
cabin was erected at the site and the Saunders family spent several
weeks there. The judge’s leg was healed and he was so enthusiastic about
it that he spread the news to other parts of the country. Health seekers
began to arrive at the wilderness mecca, living in their covered wagons
or putting up tents. By July 1, 1879 there were about twenty families
camping near the healing spring.

    [Illustration: Health Seekers Camped at the Basin Spring in July,
    1879]




                                   V
                      THE STORY OF MAJOR COOPER[8]


Major J. W. Cooper was a plantation pioneer in Texas. He had taken part
in the Revolution of the forties and then settled down to grow cotton
and raise cattle on his vast acreage. Sometime before the mid-century he
made a trip to northwest Arkansas and spent some time exploring a
section of what is now Benton and Carroll counties. He liked the
country, observed the vast stand of virgin timber, and decided to locate
there. In 1852 he sold his Texas holdings and started the long trek
north.

The trip from south Texas to northwest Arkansas occupied ten years. He
had a large strongly built wagon with heavy wheels made of bois d’arc
wood which was pulled by giant oxen. He owned sixteen head, eight being
used to pull the wagon and eight in reserve. The yokes used on these
steers were of immense size. About a dozen Negro slaves accompanied the
bachelor Major on this trip.

The reason for the long time occupied in travel was due to sickness of
the slaves. They were plagued with malaria; several of them died.
Because of this condition the major traveled slowly and camped for long
periods along the way.

On March 8, 1862, the Cooper caravan reached Elkhorn Tavern, Benton
County, Arkansas. The Battle of Pea Ridge opened that day and the
Major’s party was caught in the midst of it. The Major joined the
Cherokee Brigade of the Confederate Army and ordered the slaves to
butcher the steers for meat. Early in the battle this veteran officer
received a wound and was carried from the field. Dr. Alvah Jackson had
set up a crude hospital near the Indian Healing spring twenty miles to
the east and the Major reported there for treatment. After a few weeks
he was dismissed and returned to his command.

Major Cooper returned to Dr. Jackson for treatment in 1863, but was soon
released. His last visit, near the end of the war, is reported by L. J.
Kalklosch as follows:

“It was in February, 1865, and the ‘Yankees’ were numerous in the
country, so that the ‘Johnnies’ were compelled to make themselves scarce
or fall into the hands and care of the enemy. Major Cooper did not care
to have ‘Uncle Sam’ issue rations to him, so he, with four of his men,
were piloted to a secret cave, (the Old Rock House shelter) by his
medical advisor (Dr. Alvah Jackson), near the now famous Basin Spring,
and visitors find it one of the objects of interest during their rambles
over the city. Here he remained for about two months and used freely of
the healing waters. But eventually their secret hiding place was
discovered by the ‘Boys in Blue’ and they thought it best to find
different quarters. The conclusion was not reached, nor steps taken too
soon as they narrowly escaped being captured by the Federals. One
beautiful feature in the Major’s escape was that he was fully able to
meet the emergency as the water had fully relieved him of all his
troubles.”[9]

As the war neared its close, the Major bought a tract of land bordering
the present City of Eureka Springs on the west. He secured fresh oxen
and drove to St. Louis to get saw mill equipment. He built his mill in
“Cooper Hollow” and constructed a log house for his home. At the end of
the war his slaves were freed, but he succeeded in getting white labor
that had been “fired” from Mrs. Massman’s saw mill on Leatherwood Creek.
For several years he operated this mill, hauling the lumber to market at
Pierce City, Missouri.

“Cooper Hollow,” half a mile northwest of the city limits of Eureka
Springs is now owned by Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Woolery. Their modern home is
on the same site as Major Cooper’s log cabin. The barn stands on the old
mill site. The beautiful spring continues its abundant flow as it did in
the sixties and seventies when it supplied water for Cooper’s pioneer
milling enterprise.

    [Illustration: The Old Rock House was a haven for hunters in the
    early days. It was the site of Dr. Alvah Jackson’s hospital during
    the Civil War.]




                                   VI
                   THE COW TRIAL ON LEATHERWOOD CREEK


During the half century before Eureka Springs was settled and named in
1879, settlers trekked in and built homes in the valleys and along the
streams of the western district of Carroll County. The region was
popular with hunters because of the abundance of game. The virgin timber
attracted men who set up peckerwood sawmills to supply the pioneers with
building material. It was a rugged environment of hills and hollows and
the settlers matched the mountains in which they lived. Many stories are
told of bizarre happenings during this early period and one of them is
about the cow trial in a paw paw thicket on Leatherwood Creek four miles
north of the present location of Eureka Springs.

It was in the lusty Carpetbagger Days of the late seventies or early
eighties. The Leatherwood and White River country was sparsely settled
with hunters and timber workers who did a little farming to supply the
table. The Arkansas-Missouri state line divided the settlement and
everything went well until two men got into a dispute over the ownership
of a cow. One of them was a farmer living in Missouri, the other was a
doctor living across the line in Arkansas. The bovine brute in question
had no respect for fences or the state line. If the grass was greener in
Missouri, she pastured there, but occasionally she wandered into
Arkansas to feed on the luscious provender of the hillsides and creek
valleys. When in the “Show Me State” the Missouri farmer claimed
ownership, but when she came to Arkansas the doctor “replevined” her and
put her in his cowpen. She was a good cow and her milk flowed as freely
in one state as it did in the other.

There was no Interstate Commerce Commission in those days to regulate
such matters so the right of ownership in this particular case became
the talk of the neighborhood. No blood was shed over the controversy,
but there were fist fights from time to time when the argument went too
far. At last the people of the community got tired of the uncertainty of
the situation and petitioned the local justice of the peace to handle it
according to law as it was written down in the book.

The Squire agreed to consider the matter and rode over to Boat Mountain
to consult a constable who frequently worked with him. They talked the
matter over and decided to hold a trial “according to law” although they
felt that the cow belonged to the Missourian. They figured the trial
would draw a big crowd, if ’norated around considerable, and it would
provide a good opportunity to sell a barrel of liquor. This would
compensate judge and constable for their efforts in upholding law and
order in the community.

Cabins were few and far between in the hills in those days and none were
large enough to serve as a courthouse. The Squire had his own seat of
justice under a cliff at the edge of a paw paw thicket on Leatherwood
Creek. Numerous trials were held here during the reconstruction period
following the Civil War and justice was dispensed to the satisfaction of
the people of the hills.

A day was set for the trial and the constable began making the rounds,
giving summons to witnesses and jurors. He hinted that the cow should go
to the Missourian. The late Louis Haneke, who was sixteen years of age
at that time, was one of the jurors. Mr. Haneke was a highly esteemed
citizen of Eureka Springs in later years and operated a hotel at the
spa. The cow trial was one of his best stories. The summons read by the
constable to Louie was as follows:

“Louie Haneke, you are hereby summoned as a juror in the case of the cow
trial to be held in the Bluff Dweller Courthouse on Leatherwood Creek.
You are selected and appointed because of your good citizenship and your
great knowledge of the law.” Louie felt greatly complimented.

On the morning of the day set for the trial, men began arriving early on
foot, horseback and in wagons. Some of them brought their dogs and guns,
hunting along the way. They hung their game in trees at the edge of the
paw paw patch and stacked their guns, as the Squire ordered, in a corner
of the rock shelter. A hillbilly minstrel was in the crowd with his
guitar and he sang old ballads to entertain the men before court “took
up.” Even during the trial the judge would frequently declare a recess
and call on the ballad singer to give his version of “Barbara Allen” or
“The Butcher Boy.”

The rock shelter that served as a courthouse was under an overhanging
ledge of rock that provided floor space about ten by thirty feet. The
front was covered with rough boards with a wide opening for a door at
one end. Near the door sat the barrel of moonshine whiskey which the
judge used as a seat while conducting the trial. In front of him were a
couple of two by four scantlings, resting on wooden boxes, which served
as both a bar of justice and a bar for serving liquid refreshments.
Several tin cups were on the improvised bar for the convenience of
customers.

The Squire arrived early at the “courthouse,” put a spigot in the
barrel, set out his tin cups, and opened for business. As the men
arrived, he wrote their names on the barrel with a piece of chalk. When
the men ordered drinks, he marked a tally opposite the name for each
drink served. Payment was to be made when the trial was over. Then each
man paid according to the chalk marks opposite his name.

Promptly at nine o’clock the judge rapped for order and the trial began.
The men who claimed the cow were present with their attorneys. The
farmer’s attorney had brought a statute from Missouri while the doctor’s
lawyer produced one from Illinois, none from Arkansas being available.
The judge decided to use the Illinois statute, to favor the doctor and
avoid suspicion. He appointed a foreman of the jury and the trial got
under way. At intervals during the course of proceedings he would
declare a recess for music and refreshments.

The whiskey diminished rapidly as cup after cup was passed over the bar
and by mid-afternoon the barrel was empty. The judge immediately called
a halt to the proceedings and instructed the jury to go to the paw paw
patch and find a verdict.

After an hour in the thicket, the members of the jury discovered that
they could not agree. Both the plaintiff and defendant were called in
and questioned, but that didn’t help matters. Either the jury was
putting on a show or some of its members were not following the court’s
instructions.

The Arkansas doctor was a sly man and had provided additional
refreshments, hidden in a brush pile in the center of the thicket. At
the opportune moment, he produced a couple of jugs and the contents were
served complimentary to the jury. No one remembered what happened in
that paw paw patch after the jugs were emptied.

Most of the jurors were sawmill workers employed at Mrs. Massman’s saw
mill. When news of the party in the paw paw thicket reached the mill,
Mrs. Massman sent a man with a wagon to pick up the men that belonged to
her outfit. Some of them had crawled to the stream for water and they
were piled like cordwood in the wagon, hauled to the mill and lodged in
a corncrib to sober up. A few of the men remained in the paw paw
thicket.

When these jurors woke up the next morning they found themselves marked
with scratches, black eyes and bumps on the head. One of them had a
couple of broken ribs. But none could recall what had happened the night
before or how the trial ended.

The men “washed up” at the creek and proceeded to the courthouse to pay
for the liquor they had purchased during the trial. There sat the Squire
on top of the empty barrel, sound asleep. They awoke him and paid their
bills according to the tallies chalked up on the barrel against them.

“How did the trial come out, Squire?” asked one of the men. “Did the
Missourian get the cow?” “Gosh no,” answered the judge. “You drunken
idiots gave her to the doctor.” “Well,” said the juror, “he had the most
whiskey.”[10]




                                  VII
                         THE NAMING OF THE TOWN


“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” wrote Shakespeare, but
we doubt if any other name for Eureka Springs would fill the bill. It
was old Archimedes of ancient Greece who first used the word EUREKA as
an exultant expression and started it on the road to fame. The story
goes that King Hiero assigned Archimedes the job of finding out the
amount of alloy in his golden crown. The old mathematician was puzzled
about how to do it for his laboratory was rather inadequate for
scientific research. But he was a good observer and one day as he was
stepping out of his bathtub he noticed the water running over the sides.
This gave him the clue he was looking for and he rushed unclothed
through the streets of Syracuse, shouting in his enthusiasm, “Eureka,”
which means, “I have found it.” The result is known as the principle of
Archimedes which states that a body surrounded by a fluid is buoyed up
by a force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. Since that
time the word has been used in many parts of the world as an exulting
exclamation. California adopted it as a motto in reference to the
discovery of gold there. Nineteen states have towns or post offices
named Eureka, but there is only one Eureka Springs, named on July 4,
1879.

The basin of the old Indian Healing Spring, now called Basin Spring, is
located at the bottom of the Wishing Well in the Basin Circle Park.
Mounted on the railing above the basin is this plaque:

“Directly beneath this sign is the original rock basin after which the
spring was named. It was here on July 4, 1879 that Dr. Alvah Jackson and
about twenty-five families met and adopted the name suggested by C.
Burton Saunders, Eureka Springs.”

C. Burton Saunders was the son of Judge J. B. Saunders, and was about
fifteen years of age at that time. He was a student at Clark’s Academy
in Berryville and it is possible that he had read of the discovery of
Archimedes in his science books. But it is still a matter of dispute as
to who suggested the name for the town. L. J. Kalklosch says:

“When the discovery of the Healing Spring was a certainty, the virtue of
the water beyond dispute, and a village was springing up, the necessity
of a name suggested itself to the citizens and visitors as they were.
Some suggested that it be named Jackson Springs; others that it be
called Saunder’s Springs; but a Mr. McCoy, who had no doubt read of the
discovery of Archimedes, said to name it Eureka, ‘I have found it!’ This
was agreed upon and the young mountain queen was christened ‘Eureka
Springs.’”[11]

I know not what the truth may be regarding the naming. I tell these
tales as told to me.




                                  VIII
                           THE CITY IN EMBRYO


Eureka Springs was named on July 4, 1879 and it was a boom town from the
start. Within a year there were an estimated 5,000 people living near
the springs. L. J. Kalklosch tells about this phenomenal growth in the
book he published in 1881.

“Little did Judge Saunders think in May, 1879, when he went with his
wife and son to camp in the wilderness, miles from anything in the form
of a permanent dwelling place, where the wild animals dwelt unmolested
except when disturbed by an occasional pioneer hunter, and among hills
seemingly intended for light footed animals, instead of man and domestic
animals accompanying him, that ever a city, possibly the first in the
state, should spring up in so short a time.

“After his cure was an established fact, the news soon spread, passing
from tongue to tongue, and other afflicted mortals, hearing the good
news in the wilderness, at once turned their eyes and footsteps in the
direction of the star of gladness; and soon other cases of almost
miraculous cures were creditably established.

“The news spread like wildfire. Poor afflicted mortals were soon seen
drifting in from all directions. Rejoicing, over the cures effected, was
constantly rising in the wilderness. Many heard of the wonder, went to
see, as did the Queen of Sheba, whether what they heard was true, and
they could exclaim with her that the half had not been told. Others with
an eye to speculation, soon found their way ‘through the woods’ to the
modern Siloam so that by July 4th there were about 400 people assembled
in the gulch at the spring to celebrate the National holiday. As yet the
great discovery had not been noticed by any of our Journals, but had
been conveyed from lip to lip, and the visitors were principally from
the surrounding country and villages of northern Arkansas and southern
Missouri. By the incredulous it was denounced as a ‘humbug’ and the more
credulous with having foolish delusions, the effect of the water being
attributed to the power of the imagination only. But as the doubting
Thomases went one by one to see if what they heard be true, on their
return they reported about as follows:

“‘I don’t know; there seems to be something to it. I never had water act
so on me. People may get well, but I don’t know whether it is the water
or not; they are swarming like bees and it is hard to tell what it will
do.’

“The writer resided at Harrison, Arkansas, forty-five miles east and
heard all the reports that went abroad, but believed it all to be a kind
of excitement that would abate with the coming of winter frost. He had
not thought enough of it to ‘go and see’ as did many of his fellow
townsmen.

“About the first of July, 1879, Judge Saunders erected the first
‘shanty’ for the better protection of his family. Some people now
ventured the opinion that a village would grow up here, but no one was
‘silly’ enough to predict a city of tens of thousands. Even a year later
the absurdity of building a city in such a place, with no inducement but
the water, was talked of by many. The water has, however, proved to be
quite sufficient to induce the building of a city.

“In August (1879) it presented the appearance of a camp meeting ground
and everybody was at the height of enjoyment. People were camping in
sheds, tents, wagons and all manner of temporary shelters; some were
living in the open air with nothing but the canopy of heaven to shelter
them. There was nothing to do but to eat, drink and pass the time away
in social chat, telling, perchance of the ancient legends of the
‘Fountain of Youth,’ the late discovery, their afflictions and, the most
important, their delivery from disease.

“To give it still more the appearance of an old time camp meeting,
ministers of the gospel were here, and preaching was not uncommon. The
preacher’s stand was frequently a large rock, and the gravelly hillsides
answered for seats to accommodate the audience. The hillsides were
spotted with camp fires to warm the usual ‘snack’ or to bake the ‘Johnny
cake,’ as up to that time there were no boarding accommodations and each
visitor brought his provisions with him. One of these fires had burned a
tree partly off at its base, and while nearly all were engaged in the
noon-day repast, a tree fell and struck the wife of Professor Clark of
Berryville, causing her death in a short time. This was the first death
at the famous springs, and a very sad one. The remains were taken to
Berryville and interred there, to rest until it shall so please the
Almighty Being to give all mortals power to put on immortality.

“Judge Saunders’ shanty was soon followed by another, and another, until
the idea of a grocery suggested itself to Mr. O. D. Thornton. People
were coming in daily and when their provisions failed they were
compelled to go out for a new supply. This Mr. Thornton decided to
remedy, at least in the line of groceries. Soon a rough plank house was
erected near the spring and the first stock of groceries brought to
Eureka Springs, amounting possibly to $200. People began to rush in and
plank or box houses were soon scattered over the hillsides and across
the gulches, all trying to get as near the spring as possible without
thought or regard of system or anything.”[12]

Mr. Kalklosch continues about the growth of the town and mentions the
importance of the saw mills operated by Mrs. Massman and Mr. Van Winkle.
The first boarding house was set up by a Mrs. King from Washburn,
Missouri. She could accommodate only five or six boarders and was always
full to capacity. Then the Montgomery Brothers put in a stock of
merchandise and did a thriving business.




                                   IX
                        JOHN GASKINS—BEAR HUNTER


Among the pioneers who settled in the vicinity of the Indian Healing
Spring before the town of Eureka Springs was founded was the Gaskin
family who located on Leatherwood Creek in 1856. “Uncle Johnny” as he
was affectionately called by his friends, was one of the famous bear
hunters of the Ozarks and he left a record of his hunting adventures in
a booklet entitled, “Life and Adventures of John Gaskins in the Early
History of Northwest Arkansas.” This little book, published at Eureka
Springs in 1893, tells the Gaskin story from the time the family moved
from Washington County, Indiana to Carroll County, Arkansas in 1839, up
to and beyond the founding of Eureka Springs half a century later. Most
of it consists of his hunting escapades (he killed 200 bears in thirty
years), but there are some references to his neighbors and the economic
set-up of that day. In the introduction he tells about the discovery of
the springs and the community’s early development.

“As I was one of the first settlers in the country, living along the
creek three miles below Eureka Springs for thirty-eight years, I will
tell something about the discovery of that place.

“I had hunted all over these mountains—killed bears and panthers and
many other wild animals in nearly every gulch and cave in that vicinity.
I have killed nine bears in the hollow near the Dairy Spring and many
deer, for that was a good place for them. My regular stopping place was
the Rock House, or cave, above the Basin Spring in which Alvah Jackson
camped on his hunting trips. We often camped there, using the Basin
water for our coffee and never imagining it was more than pure water,
until Uncle Alvah camped there with them. They simply dipped the water
up from the little basin.

“Then Uncle Alvah began to use the water for other diseases, finding
that it was beneficial. He induced Judge Saunders and Mr. Whitson to go
there in the summer of ’79. Then others began to come and were cured and
benefitted; the whole sides of the mountains were covered with tents.

“I was there every day, watching and wondering. The people crowded
around the Basin Spring (that was the only spring at first, though in a
short time others were discovered) dipping up the water that poured down
over the rock into the little basin, one waiting on the other.

“I would watch for hours, wondering how it could be that I had used the
water so long and now to see the crowds gathering there for the cure of
all kinds of diseases. Many who were not able to walk would use the
water and be able in two or three weeks to climb the mountains, at that
time steep and rugged and without roads. Wagons would turn over in
trying to drive too near the springs. Once on the bench of the mountains
they would take off the wheels, and let the axles rest on the ground.
Then tents and afterwards houses were erected.

“One incident that happened that summer impressed me with solemn
thoughts. For lack of a house a great many people gathered under the
trees one Sunday to hear the preacher. A rain came up and we all retired
to the rock house. As I listened to a good sermon and saw the preacher
laying his book on the rock where I had so often set my coffee pot, my
mind ran back to the many times I had camped here, to times when the
scream of the panther or the growl of the bear mingled with that of my
dogs in the fight. Little did I think that afterwards I would sit here
and hear the voice of the man of God echoing among those rocks. I was
convinced that the all-wise Creator had not made these mountains and
valleys merely for the wild beasts.

“People kept pouring in, and in the fall and winter of 1879 my house was
always full of sick and helpless people who had no shelter. We could
never turn them away, and many times my wife and I had to give up our
own bed.

“One miraculous cure I remember was that of a young man who was brought
helpless to my house by his father. He had rheumatism and had to be
carried in from the wagon. He drank freely from the keg of Basin water
we had at the house, and then his father took him to town the next day
and bathed him in the water two or three times a day. In one week they
came driving back and the boy was sitting up in the seat and could get
around very well. The old gentleman started on to his Missouri home with
his son and a barrel of Basin water....

“The town built up rapidly without much form or improvement of streets
until after Governor Clayton located here, and through his influence and
energy the town soon had a railroad and passable streets, and then the
springs were improved and the streets fixed, adding much to the looks
and comfort of the place. Now it is one of the most picturesque towns to
be found in the state, and is visited both for health and pleasure. The
town has many magnificent buildings and substantial enterprises,
including the Sanitarium Company, which has grounds near Eureka Springs
and is doing much in the way of improvements. The beautiful scenery in
every direction fills the visitor with astonishment not to be described
with the pen.”[13]

One story is told about John Gaskins and his encounter with a bear near
Oil Spring on the outskirts of Eureka Springs. Some say it was another
hunter who killed the bear, but the incident is usually credited to
Uncle Johnny.

The White Elephant rooming house was located near where Mount Air Court
now stands. It was in the early eighties and Eureka Springs had no water
system such as we have today. Water was carried from the springs for
drinking water and household use. “Aunt Min” who operated the White
Elephant was worried. It was customary to send a couple of girls to Oil
Spring down under the hill for water, but a bear had been seen in the
vicinity of the spring and the girls were afraid to make the trip. Water
was needed at the White Elephant so “Aunt Min” sent for Uncle Johnny
Gaskins, a famous bear hunter, who lived on Leatherwood Creek north of
town.

Uncle Johnny arrived at the White Elephant early one November morning,
his trusty double-barrel muzzle loader in the crook of his arm. He would
get the bear if it had not already taken to its den for the winter.

“Take a bucket and bring back some water,” said “Aunt Min.”

The hunter took the wooden pail in one hand and his gun in the other and
started down the hill, his eyes alert for bear tracks. It was a cold
morning and he put his hands into his pants pockets, carrying the bucket
in the crook of his left arm, the gun in the crook of his right. Two
hundred yards down the hill the trail makes an abrupt turn to the cliff
from which flows the Oil Spring. At this point Gaskins came face to face
with a large black bear followed by a half-grown cub.

He had killed many bears in close quarters and seldom got excited about
it. But this occasion called for quicker action than he had ever
experienced. Before the hunter could get his hands out of his pockets
the bear had the end of the barrels of the gun in her mouth, chewing
like mad. There was no time to get the gun to his shoulder so he fired
from the hip, pulling the triggers of both barrels with his left hand,
the bucket still on his left arm. It stopped the bear all right, almost
blowing the animal’s head from its shoulders, but it did more than that.
The end of the barrels in the bear’s mouth caused the gun to explode.
Gaskins got a severe wound on his right forearm from the “kick” of the
gun. The end of the barrels were twisted out of shape by the explosion.
You may see the twisted barrels of this old gun at the Ozark Museum,
Highway 62 West, Eureka Springs. Go and see for yourself.... Oh, yes,
they had bear steak and spring water for dinner at the White Elephant
that day.[14]

Vance Randolph gives this tale under the title “Uncle Johnny’s Bear” in
Who Blowed Up the Churchhouse? (New York, 1952), pp. 72-73. In his notes
(p. 200) he says:

“Told by a resident of Carroll County, Arkansas, March, 1934. This
individual credited it to Louis Haneke, who used to run the Allred Hotel
in Eureka Springs. Sam Leath, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at
Eureka Springs, told an almost identical story in 1948, and showed me
the remains of a shotgun which he said was used in killing the bear.
Otto Ernest Rayburn wrote a story based on Leath’s account. It was
published in the Eureka Springs Times-Echo (April 20, 1950) and
reprinted in Ozark Guide (Spring, 1951, p. 53). Rayburn says ‘the
twisted barrels of the old gun may be seen at the Ozark Museum,’ which
is on Highway 62, west of Eureka Springs. Both Leath and Rayburn give
the name of the hunter as Johnny Gaskins, who killed more than two
hundred bears and wrote a book (Life and Adventures of John Gaskins,
Eureka Springs, Ark., 1893, pp. 113) describing his hunts in great
detail. But Gaskins does not mention this adventure. Some old residents
think it was Johnny Sexton who killed the bear at the ‘White Elephant.’
Cora Pinkley Call (in Pioneer Tales of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. 1930,
p. 24) prints a photograph of Sexton with a shotgun in one hand and a
wildcat in the other without any reference to the White Elephant.
Constance Wagner tells the story in her novel Sycamore (1950, pp.
151-52), but doesn’t mention the bear-slayer’s name.”

    [Illustration: The Basin Spring as it appeared in the early days.]




                                   X
                          “WATER PACKIN’ DAYS”


The first settlers at Eureka Springs considered the water from the Basin
Spring to be a potent agency for healing and rejuvenation. Judge J. B.
Saunders, one of the first to try the water, gave this report:

“In five weeks I lost thirty-three pounds in weight and forty odd pounds
during my stay, and felt that I had been fully renovated, or made new,
and was as active then and now as I ever was in my life. I will also add
that from the frequent bathing of my head in its waters, and the
improved condition of my health, portions of my hair changed from a
yellowish white to black, its original color. The color of the hair then
grown was not changed, but a new crop grew out from the scalp, the color
of my hair in my younger days.”[15]

John Gaskins, the old bear hunter, seemed to think the water from this
spring might influence the mental as well as the physical life of those
who used it. He wrote:

“I want to add that I believe we are raising boys here at Eureka Springs
on this pure water who will have the brains for presidents. I often tell
people that I have made it possible for them to raise children here by
killing the bears and other wild animals. Now in my old days I have the
pleasure of seeing so many nice healthy children that I feel repaid for
all that I’ve gone through, and sincerely hope that my efforts have not
been in vain.”[16]

The late Amos J. Fortner was brought to Eureka Springs by his parents in
1882. He was a young lad with his body twisted with infantile paralysis.
Here is his story:

“Life in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was almost unbelievably crude in the
early days of 1882 and 1883, three or four years after the ‘healing
springs’ were discovered by white men, and the place became a mushroom
city of five or six thousand people almost overnight. No water works, no
sewer system, no paved streets, no street cars and, of course, no
automobiles.

“My first memories of the town that was destined to become the leading
health resort of the Ozarks are of gangs of men drilling and blasting on
the side of the mountain to change Spring street in the vicinity of
Sweet and Harding springs. Previous to that time Sweet Spring was in a
little hollow far below its present location and almost exactly
underneath a high foot-bridge which spanned the ravine. The bridge
permitted a short cut from the Crescent Springs district to the
down-town area. Somehow they were able to locate the underground flow of
water and bring it out to the present street level. Then, of course, the
original Sweet Spring went bone dry. I rather believe they relocated the
Harding Spring also, but I am not sure of this. So it happens that the
convenient locations of some of the springs on Spring street are not
entirely the work of nature.

“In after years I often saw crowds of people waiting their turns to fill
their pails with the good water from Sweet, Harding and Crescent
Springs. These scenes would give a new and vivid meaning to a picture on
one of the cards I received at Sunday School: ‘Women waiting at the
well.’ I would use my childish imagination and wonder if an angel was
hidden in some dim corner by the bath house to ‘trouble the water’ so
that the people who came to bathe could receive miraculous healing.

“Property values in those days were based considerably on the proximity
to some good spring. Consequently the homes of the well-to-do people
were not located on the hill-tops but on the lower levels where water
was plentiful and easy to obtain. We poor folks lived higher up on the
hill where rent was cheaper. Generally, we didn’t have to pay any rent
at all, but, of course, we had to carry our water a long ways and up the
steep hillside.

“I recall that my brother, who had an inventive turn of mind, built a
rolling water keg so that he could ‘horse’ the water up the mountain
side and not have to carry it. My sister and I would frequently help him
pull the keg up the steep places on the trail. But living that way on
the very tip-top of Eureka’s sun-kissed hills had its compensations. We,
the poorest of the poor, did actually ‘look down’ on the poor rich
people on the lower levels.

“Another advantage of living high up on the hill was the wonderful view.
My brother some how got hold of an old Civil War telescope about three
feet long and we would look through it and count the chickens in the
yards on East Mountain. I would sometimes lie for hours on my stomach in
our little yard and travel far away among the pines and cedars growing
on the distant ridges. One time I saw a boy and girl sitting together on
a distant hillside with their arms around each other and when they
kissed I almost passed out for I was only seven or eight years old at
the time. I saw other things through that old telescope that I should
not have witnessed at my age, but let’s skip that. Many happy hours did
I spend with the old ‘seeing eye’ and I am quite sure that my passionate
love for Nature stems from the beautiful things I saw through it from
Crescent Hill.

“The city of Eureka Springs owes a great deal of its picturesque and
rugged beauty to one man—Powell C. Clayton. He had a vigorous program of
creating beauty out of a medley array of tumbledown shacks that dotted
the hillsides. Of course, he made enemies with some property owners.
Property values were certainly low at that time. My father bought one of
the old-time houses and three city lots for $100, paying $5 down and $2
a month. Previous to that time we had lived in at least ten different
houses during a five year period. Not one of these houses had a stone or
cement foundation except along one edge which rested on the hillside.
Usually the building was supported by spindly wood posts, the length
determined by the steepness of the hillside. Some of these houses were
so high from the ground that we could walk around underneath without
bumping our heads. One of them had a southern exposure and it was so
high off the ground that the sunshine would reach back far underneath.
My mother took advantage of this spot for early spring garden, planting
radishes, onions and lettuce. A little later cornfield beans were
planted and trained up the posts that supported the house. That year we
were eating garden vegetables some weeks earlier than any other family
living in northern Arkansas.

“We had to move frequently. The house we lived in would be condemned and
an official city demolition crew would tear it down. But always Mr.
Clayton would tell my parents of some other house in which we could
live, rent free, until it came time to tear it down, then we would move
again. At one time when my father was out of town, Mr. Clayton even paid
the expenses of our moving. But he was in a hurry that time. He wanted
to immediately start clearing the ground for the erection of the
Crescent Hotel and our shack was on the spot where the hotel was to be
built. Oh how I hated to leave that hilltop!

“The lumber salvaged from the town was not wasted. Many car-loads of
used lumber were shipped to western Kansas to build houses and barns for
the pioneer families of that region. Many a woman, I have been told,
stood at the door of her sod-shanty and wept tears of joy when she saw
the ‘old man’ coming with a big wagon load of second-hand pine lumber
from Eureka Springs.

“Why a lad of six or seven years should remember these things I will
never understand but, nevertheless, they are true.

“I have always thought that the building of the street car system was a
civic blunder, but I may be wrong. And I am even more positive in my
opinion that the coming of the automobile age was a great calamity to
Eureka Springs.... Now, wait a minute before you call me crazy!

“In 1879 the ‘Healing Spring Country’ was a vast uninhabited wilderness
where timber wolves prowled and howled and froze the blood in the veins
of their waiting victims, and foxes had their dens in the caves and
crevices along the hillside. Many a ‘big bad wolf’ slacked his thirst at
Basin Spring and perhaps cured himself of his mangy ills. (Some ‘wolves’
do that now, I am told.) In just two years the wild animals had to take
to the bushes to make room for five thousand people who had poured in to
make their homes at the springs.

“There was a reason for the spectacular growth of Eureka Springs,
probably several reasons. The people believed in the water as a cure for
their ailments. Practically every family had some member who had been
brought back from the brink of the grave to health again through (so
they thought) the ‘magic power’ of the healing springs.

“I feel that I owe my life to Eureka Springs! My parents took me there
in 1882, my body ravaged and my spine twisted with infantile paralysis.
I had lost my sense of balance to the extent that I would fall headlong
if my dragging feet so much as touched a rough spot on the floor. I fell
perhaps thousands of times while I was learning to walk a second time.
My parents moved into a cabin in a lonely hollow not far from Basin
Spring. Each day fresh water was brought from this spring for my dishpan
bath. It wasn’t long until I began dragging my feet along as I tried to
follow my brother when he would go to the spring for water. I even began
to try to climb the hillsides by holding to bushes growing there. Each
day I would go a little farther up the hillside. Then a great day came!

“I heard a church bell ringing sweet and clear on the hilltop high above
our home. An intense longing entered my childish heart to answer that
pleading call in person. With wishful face I asked my father, ‘Daddy,
may I go up there?’ A moment’s thoughtful pause and then his answer.
‘Why yes, Jesse, you may go. I think you can make it and no harm to try
anyway.’ So I got out all alone to climb that rugged hill. So steep the
way, so painful the going that I often had to touch the ground with both
my hands as though I were climbing a ladder.

“After many rests I made it to the top of the hill and entered the
little unpainted church where I sat through the service. Then at the end
I heard those people sing! Most of them were in Eureka Springs to keep
from leaving this ‘vale of tears.’ They not only sang, they shouted the
words:

  “My heavenly home is bright and fair,
      I feel like traveling on!
  No pain nor death can enter there,
      I feel like traveling on....”

“If ever I have gotten religion in my entire life, it was in that very
hour in the little church on the hilltop, and I was only six years old.
You say a kid of that age can’t ‘get religion.’ That’s what you think. I
knew the facts of life and death far better than most children of my
age. My ears were sharp and I had overheard my mother and father discuss
my probable death in broken tones of grief and despair. They already had
six precious children sleeping in early graves scattered through the
Ozark hills where they had lived. And I would be the next to go. This
talk did not frighten me. I didn’t care.

“But when I heard the people in that little church sing that great song
of inspiration I knew that I wasn’t going to die so soon and, child that
I was, my courage was amazing and before the song was ended I was
voicing that one line—

  “I feel like traveling on....”

And I meant it, too! That’s how I “got religion” at the age of six and
it is with me yet at three score and ten plus. I still “feel like
traveling on...!”

“Coming down the hill wasn’t hard at all. I slid most of the way. And
when I entered the cabin my mother’s face was happier than I had ever
seen it before in all my life.

“In no time at all, I was climbing all over the hills, ever eager to see
what might be in the hollow just beyond. I picked huckleberries and
blackberries, caught minnows in the creeks and lived the life of the
average boy in the hills. If I had been taken to Eureka Springs on soft
cushions and whizzed over paved highways in an automobile, I wonder if
it would have been the same.

“The thing that happened to me happened to thousands both young and old
during the two or three decades while Eureka Springs was at its height
as a health resort. When such folks arrived in Eureka Springs over the
crooked railway their ‘cure’ began immediately. The bumpty-bump-bump and
the ceaseless sway of the old horse-drawn vehicles that met them at the
depot started their livers into unprecedented activity even before they
arrived to register at the Perry House or the Southern Hotel.

“Collapsible tin cups were very popular in those days and the health
seekers would go from spring to spring, rest awhile in the cool shade,
sample the water and argue the respective merits of Basin and Magnetic
or Sweet and Crescent. They would keep on going to Dairy Spring and
Grotto and some walked as far as Oil Spring to bring back a jug of
water. A program of strenuous exertion like that, plus the copious
drinking of pure water, induced an active patronage of the rest rooms
provided at strategic points along the way and it worked wonders. Try it
and see.

“As I write these lines I hear a great choir singing on the radio:

  ‘I love Thy rocks and rills,
  Thy woods and templed hills,
  My heart with rapture thrills....’

“Gosh-all-hemlock, they’re singing about old Eureka Springs.”[17]




                                   XI
                       THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD


The “CASEY JONES” legend of railroad lore does not tie up with the
turbulent history of the North Arkansas Line, but the two episodes do
have a far-fetched parallel. If trouble is a weld of incident there is a
connection between the two. The wreck of No. 382 of the Cannon Ball
Express at Vaughn, Mississippi, on May 1, 1900 brought Casey into
railroadana’s hall of fame, but the North Arkansas Railroad, now the
Arkansas and Ozarks Line, experienced almost continued trouble during
its first 60 years of history. The ballad makers have missed a good bet
in ignoring the harrowed tale of this mechanical step-child of the
central Ozarks. Time will probably weave the story into a legend, but
that day has not yet arrived.

The Ozark region has had many ups and downs since the “Arkansaw
Traveler” tuned his fiddle in the Pope county hills. Most of the
frustrations, however, were of short duration. But the North Arkansas
Railroad as a problem child of industry is written large in Ozark
history. Two sections of the line have been reopened for service after a
tense struggle for survival. The following historical outline will
explain the difficulties the line has had:

1881. The Frisco Railroad, headed toward Oklahoma and Texas, reached
Seligman, Missouri, this year. Eighteen miles to the southeast was the
booming resort town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, which had been settled
and named two years before. The traveling public tired of the slow stage
coach service, and the local business men wanted a branch line from the
Frisco to the Spa. St. Louis capital got busy and a twelve-mile line
from Seligman to Beaver, Arkansas, on White River was built. It was
named the Missouri and Arkansas Railroad.

1882. The road was extended six miles, from Beaver to Eureka Springs,
under a different company which was organized by Powell Clayton, then a
resident of Eureka Springs. The two short lines consolidated as the
Eureka Springs Railway. A schedule of nine trains a day, most of them
with pullman service, filled the resort town with health seekers.

1899. A company was organized to extend the road into the hill country
to the south and east. It was financed by business men of Little Rock,
St. Louis and New York.

1901. The line was completed to Harrison and named the St. Louis and
North Arkansas Railroad.

1902. An extension was built from Harrison to Leslie giving the line a
trackage of 120 miles.

1905. The road had financial difficulties which ended in a foreclosure,
but the stockholders started a program of expansion, determined to keep
the road and make it pay.

1909. The road was extended from Leslie to Helena on the south, and
Seligman to Joplin on the north, making an interstate railroad 369 miles
long.

1911. The Shops at Eureka Springs and Leslie were abandoned. Harrison
put up a donation of $25,000 and the shops were located there.

1914. On August 5th there was a disastrous wreck at Tupton Ford between
Joplin and Neosho when the M. & N. A. motor coach was struck by a Kansas
City Southern passenger train. Forty-three people were killed and many
injured. Payments made to families of the victims almost depleted the
already low treasury.

1917-1919. The M. & N. A. was operated by the government during World
War I.

1921. On February 1 wages of employees were reduced by 20 per cent. This
was followed by a walkout which became a strike that lasted nearly two
years, causing much ill feeling and hardship. On July 31, operations on
the road were suspended.

1922. Service on the road was reopened under new management but they had
serious difficulties in operating the line.

1927. Into the hands of the receiver again.

1935. The road was sold at auction and bought by the Kell family of
Wichita Falls, Texas, for $350,000. The name was changed to the Missouri
and Arkansas.

1941-42. Offices and shops at Harrison were destroyed by fire.

1945. A disastrous flood destroyed much track.

1946. On September 6 there was a walkout of employees which led to an
application for the abandonment of the property.

1948. Movement was started to reorganize and resume operations.

1949. The line was purchased and reorganized. The section between Cotton
Plant and Helena was revived as the Helena and Northwestern Railroad. It
started operations early in the year. The trackage between Harrison,
Arkansas and Seligman, Missouri became the Arkansas and Ozarks Railway.
Two Diesel engines were purchased for this 65-mile line. Trains carry
carload shipments only and the amount of business regulates the size and
frequency of trains. The sections between Joplin and Seligman in
Missouri and from Harrison to Cotton Plant have been junked.

That is a brief history of the “turbulent” North Arkansas Railroad. Few
railroads in our history have taken the severe beatings this road has
suffered. But the business men and farmers of the central Ozarks are
determined that this section have a railroad. When abandonment was
apparent in 1947-48, they arose like the embattled farmers of Concord
and Lexington and began a fight that has saved the road. Now it is in a
modified form with freight service only and over only a fraction of the
original 369 miles of trackage, but residents of the state are well
pleased with the service and the line appears to be doing well.

The best historical narrative on the North Arkansas Railway is included
in Jesse Lewis Russell’s history of northwest Arkansas, Behind These
Ozark Hills (published in 1947). Pages 116 to 156 are devoted to the
“turbulent career” of this line.

In 1901 there was great excitement when the stretch of road from Eureka
Springs to Harrison was completed. People at the Spa hired rigs to drive
them forty-five miles to Harrison in order to ride the first train back.
It was a time for celebration and on the streets and in the shops and
hotel lobbies this verse was sung:

  “A rubber-tired surrey,
  A rubber-tired hack
  We’re going down to Harrison
  To ride the Booger back.”

We now have the “Booger” back and it is a pleasure to hear him comin’
’round the mountain, bell ringing, siren tooting, with car-loads of
lumber, mineral ore and Eureka Springs water for the outside world.

About the time of the opening of the new Arkansas and Ozarks line, Clyde
Newman of Harrison had an article in the Arkansas Gazette which gave
most of the above data and some additional information.

    [Illustration: Railroad track.]




                                  XII
                     THE JAMES BOYS ON PLANER HILL


Legend connects Frank and Jesse James with this locality in a humorous
episode that is not mentioned in the biographies of these famous
outlaws. These men sometimes rode into Arkansas and it is reported that
they had an uncle who operated a tavern at the stage stop on Planer
Hill, before the town of Eureka Springs was started. It is quite
probable that they sometimes “put up” with their uncle when they
considered it safe to do so. We have no historical records about their
visits here for outlaws seldom keep diaries and prefer to keep their
movements secret.

Several years ago an aged man visited Eureka Springs and asked Sam A.
Leath, who was the town’s leading guide, to show him to a place on the
old stage trail two or three miles south of the city. Finding the spot
he was looking for, just off State Highway 23, and not far from Lake
Lucerne, the old man told the following story:

“’Twas in the 70’s when I resigned my parish at Ozark, Arkansas, to take
over a church at Pierce City, Missouri. With four other men I traveled
north on the stage, which was the only transportation available at that
time. My companions were strangers but congenial fellows and I
thoroughly enjoyed the ride through the Boston Mountains. At this spot,
just south of the stage stop, we were halted by two bandits who proved
to be Jesse and Frank James. They ordered us from the coach and stripped
us of our money and valuables. Placing the loot in his hat, one of the
highwaymen called me aside and asked me if I were not a minister of the
gospel. I answered in the affirmative.

“‘Your companions are notorious gamblers,’ said the bandit, ‘and we have
a special reason for robbing them. But with you it is different. We
never take from preachers, widows, or orphans.’ With these words, he
poured a generous portion of the booty into my coat pocket and warned me
not to return it to the gamblers. The bandits then mounted their horses
and disappeared in the woods.

“There was an ominous silence among my four companions while riding to
the tavern. I couldn’t understand it. They made no complaint about being
robbed and gave no indication of reporting the incident to the law. Even
the driver of the stage seemed unconcerned about the affair.

“Upon arrival, I secured a room at the tavern for the night. As I was
about to retire, I heard two men talking in an adjoining room. I
recognized the voices as belonging to the two men we had encountered on
the road. They were occupying the room next to me.

“‘Do you suppose that man was telling the truth when he said he was a
preacher?’ said one of the men.

“‘I think so,’ replied the other, ‘but to make sure we will test him out
at the breakfast table in the morning.’ He continued by outlining the
‘third degree’ they would give me.

“I heard every word of the plan and prepared to meet it. Far into the
night I prayed for strength to meet the ordeal. Then I fell asleep and
did not awake until called for breakfast.

“The brothers were waiting for me when I reached the dining room. When I
took a place at the table, the one I decided was Frank sat down beside
me. Immediately I felt the pressure of steel against my ribs. Jesse sat
across the table in front of me. He asked me to say grace.

“Never before did such a fervent prayer fall from my lips. I thanked the
Lord for the food, for guidance on the journey, for the welfare of my
old parish, for the people of my new pastorate, and, lastly, for the
companionship of the two men who were with me. I concluded by asking
that richest blessings reward them all through life.

“All through the prayer I could feel the gun pressing against my side
and could sense the piercing eyes of the bandit leader from across the
table. When I concluded the prayer, we ate the food set before us and
conversed in a congenial manner. At the conclusion of the meal, Jesse
called me aside.

“‘You’re all right, parson,’ he said. ‘Luck to you in your new parish.
If you travel this way again you may depend upon our protection.’

“I continued my journey and took up the pastorate at Pierce City. But I
never saw the James brothers again.”[18]




                                  XIII
                   HIGHLIGHTS OF HISTORY AND FOLKLORE


Judge Saunders of Berryville completed a cabin near the Basin Spring on
or about July 4, 1879. A grocery store with a $200 stock was opened by
O. D. Thornton on July 6th. By the end of July there were twelve crude
dwellings perched on the hillsides near the Basin Spring. The population
increased slowly during the first few weeks after the naming of the
town. A count was made on August 10 and it totaled 180 permanent
residents. People began coming in large numbers during the late summer
and this immigration increased during the fall and winter. By July 4,
1880, an estimated 5,000 people were living in the community and the
sound of hammering could be heard day and night as new buildings were
put up.

During the first few weeks, the Basin Spring was the center of
attraction, but it was not long until the other springs in the vicinity
were discovered and used. Streets had to be laid out and the first
project was Main Street. H. S. Montgomery, with the help of twenty men,
opened up the valley in August, 1879. Business openings during the first
year included: Van Winkle, lumber yard; A. D. Mize, hardware; Dr. Hogue,
drug store; Jefferson, saloon; Walquist, tailor shop, William Conant,
livery stable. Dr. McCarthy was the first resident physician and lived
on the site now occupied by the Rock Cabin Courts. The first
manufacturing business was a cane factory operated by a fellow named
Cook. The first postmaster was T. M. Johnson. Hugo and Herman Seidel
owned and operated the first produce house which stood at the mouth of
Mill Hollow.

1880 and 1881 were boom years for the new town. Cora Pinkley Call in her
Pioneer Days in Eureka Springs says that in 1881 there were fifty-seven
boarding houses and hotels, one bank, thirty-three groceries, twelve
saloons, twenty-two doctors, one undertaker, and twelve real estate
agents. Earl Newport, whose father, J. W. Newport, was one of the early
business men of the city, showed me a picture of about fifty boys who
were “boot blacks” in the early days of the town. Earl was one of the
boys who carried a portable outfit and gave a shine for a nickel. Mrs.
Annie House, the oldest newspaper woman in Arkansas, was a small girl
when she came to Eureka Springs in 1879. She has been a resident of the
town during the entire seventy-five years and spent forty years working
on local newspapers. Charley Stehm, artist in wood and stone, came to
the town as a boy in the early eighties and lived here until his death,
Sept. 22, 1954.

Transportation was a problem in the early days. Pierce City, Missouri,
eighty-four miles to the north, was the nearest railroad point. In 1880,
the Eureka Springs liverymen established a stage line that connected
with the Butterfield stage at Garfield.

Eureka Springs was incorporated February 14, 1880. Elisha Rosson was the
first mayor, but he did not remain in office but a few months. The
second mayor, Mr. Carroll, took a census in May, 1881, and the
population to said to have exceeded 8,000. In 1882, Eureka Springs was
declared a city of the first class and ranked as one of the six largest
cities of the state. Goodspeed, writing of this “Crazy Quilt” town about
1885, said:

“Everywhere that an abode can be constructed, houses of every
description, tents and shelters, sprang up all over the mountain tops,
hanging by corners on the steep sides, perched upon jutting boulders,
spanning gulches, or nestling under crags in the grottoes. It is a most
peculiar looking place, presenting an apparent disregard to anything
like order and arrangement.”

The town had two disastrous fires in the eighties. The first one came
early in the morning of November 3, 1883, destroying the business
section on Mountain and Eureka streets. A fine drug store was located in
the V-junction of Mountain and Eureka, a livery stable where the
Christian Science church now stands, and a bakery across the street. The
second big fire came in 1888 and burned the business section along
Spring Street from Calip Spring to the Presbyterian Church. 480 houses
were destroyed. Only four frame houses were left standing in the area.

According to Goodspeed, T. J. Hadley brought a printing press from
Olathe, Kansas in November, 1879 and established the first newspaper.
The date of the first issue of the Echo is given as February 21, 1880.
Within two or three years, the town had two additional newspapers, the
Dispatch and the Herald.

Eureka Springs has had its full share of legend and folklore and some of
the fabulous tales are told with tongue in cheek. Take the marital swap
of “Uncle” Adam and “Uncle” Dick. A couple called “Adam and Eve” lived
in a rock shelter across the road from Johnson Spring. Dick and his wife
occupied an adjoining shelter to the south. One day Adam traded Eve to
Dick for his wife and got a horse and buggy and a dog to boot. Dick and
his newly acquired wife left the country soon after the swap, but it is
reported that the woman came back later and lived with Adam. This
happened, according to the old timers, about the turn of the century.

Vance Randolph, in Who Blowed Up the Church House?,[19] gives a
different version of the wife-trading story. He heard the anecdote from
an old timer in Eureka Springs about 1950. Here is his version:

“One time there was two old men lived up Magnetic Holler, right close to
a little branch they call Mystic Spring nowadays. One of these fellows
was Uncle Adam, and he had a wife. The other one was knowed as Uncle
Dick, and he didn’t have no wife, but he had two cows. They got to
trading jackknives and shotguns, and finally Uncle Adam swapped his wife
for one of Uncle Dick’s cows. Folks used to trade wives pretty free in
them days, and nobody said much about it. Lots of them wasn’t really
married anyhow, so there wasn’t no great harm done.

“But it wasn’t long ’till word got around that Uncle Adam’s woman had up
and left him, and moved her stuff over to Uncle Dick’s cabin. The next
time Uncle Adam came into town, somebody asked him if Uncle Dick had
stole his wife. ‘Hell no,’ says Uncle Adam, ‘it was a fair swap, all
open and above board. Dick give me his best cow for the old woman, and
two dollars to boot.’

“Folks got to laughing about it, and one day the sheriff stopped Uncle
Adam in the street. ‘This here trading wives is against the law
nowadays,’ says he, ‘And everybody knows a woman is worth more than a
cow, anyhow.’ Uncle Adam laughed right in the sheriff’s face. ‘Don’t you
believe it, Sheriff,’ he says, ‘Don’t you believe it! Why, that there
cow of mine is three-fourths Jersey!’”

    [Illustration: That there cow is three-fourths Jersey!]




                                  XIV
                       THE CAPTURE OF BILL DOOLIN


It was during the winter of 1895-96. Bill Doolin, the Oklahoma outlaw
was spending his “vacation” in Eureka Springs, taking the baths and
hiding out from the law. He had allegedly killed three marshals at
Ingalls, Okla., a short time before and committed other crimes over a
period of several years of outlawry, and the law was hot on his trail
when he disappeared at the first of the year, 1896.

Bill Tilghman, United States marshal, knew Doolin personally and set out
to capture him. At a boarding house in Ingalls he learned that the
outlaw had gone to some resort in Arkansas for his health and safety.
The marshal selected Eureka Springs as the most likely place for
Doolin’s hideout.

Tilghman arrived in Eureka Springs disguised as a preacher, wearing a
Prince Albert coat and a derby hat. He registered at a hotel and left
his baggage. He then walked to a little park in the center of town. A
man was stooped over the spring, filling a jug with water. When he
raised up the marshal saw that it was Doolin.

Tilghman knew the outlaw was quick on the draw and did not attempt to
arrest him. Instead, he dropped into a nearby shop and watched him
through the window. Doolin walked across the park, crossed a bridge that
spanned a little stream, and ascended a flight of steps leading to a
hotel.

Tilghman went back to the park, sat down and began thinking. He had left
a shotgun at his hotel and his first thought was to get the gun, hide
behind a tree and get his man as he came down the steps. But he wanted
to take him alive. Then he devised what he thought was a better plan. He
went to a nearby carpenter shop and ordered a box made long enough to
hold his shotgun. It was to be hinged and easy to open. With this
contraption he could sit in the park without attracting attention and
get Doolin as he approached. The carpenter promised to have the box
ready by late evening. He would polish it and make it look like a
musical instrument case. That would mean another day in Eureka Springs.
He would lay for Doolin early in the morning as he came from his hotel.

Tilghman ate lunch at a cafe and then having time to kill, decided to
take one of the famous Eureka Springs baths. He noticed the Basin Spring
Bath House across the bridge from the Basin Circle. He walked into the
hallway and opened a door at the left to enter the lobby. His eye took
in everything in the room at a glance. There was a desk in the corner
with a man sitting behind it. Several men were in the room, playing
checkers or reading. One of them sat behind a pot-bellied stove at the
east end of the lobby, his face behind a newspaper.

When Bill entered the room this man lowered his paper for an instant.
The marshal saw that it was Doolin.

“I want a bath,” said Tilghman and stepped quickly into the hall,
walking in the direction of the room marked “Baths.” Half way down the
hall he stopped in front of a door that opened directly into the east
end of the lobby; Doolin was sitting within a few feet of that door.

What if he had recognized him and was awaiting his entrance? He must
take a chance. He pulled his .45 from its holster and opened the door.
There sat Doolin still reading.

“Put up your hands, I’ve got you covered,” said the marshal as he
stepped around the stove.

The outlaw’s eyes opened wide in surprise as he recognized Tilghman. He
reached for his gun but Tilghman grabbed for his wrist, missed and
caught his coat sleeve. The sleeve ripped, but he held on.

“Doolin, I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you don’t get your
hands up.”

Doolin saw that he was trapped and obeyed. Tilghman asked the clerk to
get the outlaw’s gun, but the man was so nervous that he made several
attempts before he succeeded in getting it out of the holster. The other
men in the lobby had run like quail when the trouble started.

Tilghman put handcuffs on Doolin and took him to his hotel to get his
belongings. Among the items on the dresser was a silver cup the outlaw
had bought for his baby boy. Tilghman put it in the suitcase along with
other things and they were on their way to the depot to catch the 4
o’clock train. A boy was sent to the carpenter to tell him the box would
not be needed.

When they got on the train, Doolin promised to make no attempt to escape
and the handcuffs were removed. They arrived in Guthrie, Okla., at 10 p.
m., and Doolin was placed in the federal jail to await trial. But that
trial never came. He made a jail break in July, hid out on a Texas ranch
for several months, and was killed by officers when he attempted to
return to Oklahoma to get his wife and baby.

  (Credit for source material on the capture of Bill Doolin goes to the
  late Charley Stehm, an article in the Eureka Springs Times-Echo by
  Annie House, “Eureka Springs: Stair-Step Town” by Cora Pinkley Call,
  and “Marshall of the Frontier—Life and Stories of William Matthew
  (Bill) Tilghman”, written by his wife, Zoe Tilghman and published by
  Arthur H. Clark and Company, Cleveland in 1949. The incidents of the
  capture are somewhat similar in all these accounts but Mrs. Tilghman
  goes into greater detail in reporting the story.)




                                   XV
                            STORIES IN STONE


According to the information on the pictorial sign board in the Basin
Circle Park, Eureka Springs has fifty-six miles of retaining walls.
Several years ago an old-timer told me he figured that the walls of this
town, if put end to end, would reach a distance of forty miles. No one
has taken the trouble to measure these walls so one guess is as good as
another. In addition to the walls, a large amount of stone has been used
in the construction of hotels, homes and business buildings. 60,000
cubic yards of stone in the walls and buildings of the city is a
conservative estimate. In comparison with the Great Pyramid of Cheops in
Egypt, the only survivor of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, this
mass of stone-work is comparatively small, but it is a lot of stone to
go into the make-up of one small town. It would make a single wall four
feet high, one foot thick, and approximately sixty-six miles long.

The great Egyptian Pyramid consists of 3,150,000 cubic yards of stone or
about fifty times as much material as used in the building of Eureka
Springs. The pyramid is about 450 feet high and covers 13½ acres of
land. It is made of 2,300,000 limestone blocks each weighing 2½ tons.
According to ancient historians, it took 100,000 men twenty years to
build it. At Eureka Springs, workmen in Powell Clayton’s time, “the
roaring eighties,” put up most of the walls and buildings in a period of
eight or ten years. The Crescent Hotel was built in the mid-eighties and
several business buildings were constructed of stone after the big fire
of 1888.

The stone work of Eureka Springs may be only 1/50th of that of the great
pyramid, but the labor involved was immense. The weight of 60,000 cubic
yards of limestone is approximately 132,000 tons. The stone was quarried
near Beaver six miles away. It had to be transported in wagons or on
railroad flat cars to the townsite. If brought by rail it was handled
three or four times before it reached its destination. The mere lifting
of the stone required at least three hundred million foot-pounds of
work. If we knew how many foot-pounds a man can do in a day, we could
figure the labor potential. The stone had to be cut and laid by skilled
workmen. Most of this stone, laid seventy years ago, is in excellent
condition today.

Both limestone and sandstone are used for building material in northwest
Arkansas, but the sandstone must be of the harder varieties to be useful
for this purpose. Limestone is preferred, either of the Boone variety or
marble. Marble limestone is found in Carroll County, but it is not as
plentiful as other grades. The block of marble sent from Arkansas to be
placed in the national Washington monument, was quarried near the corner
of Carroll and Newton counties.

Onyx marble is found in this section and at one time Eureka Springs had
an onyx factory which used the stone in manufacturing jewelry. Great
slabs of it were taken from the caves in the vicinity. It is a stone of
many colors—white, cream, dull red, and yellowish brown, with the colors
usually in alternate stripes. It takes a brilliant polish.

The agate, found in our hills, is a crystal formation, but the particles
are so minute that they are discernable only under the microscope. It is
shaped by the cavity in which it is formed. The colors depend upon the
mineral matter it contains; iron producing reds, saponite the greens,
chalcedony the grays, and caladonite the blues. The agate is classed as
a gem but it is also used in the manufacture of bowls, vases, signet
rings, and for rollers in the textile industry.

William Cullen Bryant in his poem “Thanatopsis” spoke of the earth as
“rock ribbed and ancient as the sun.” Perhaps he was wrong in his
conjecture that the earth is as old as the sun, but we leave that to the
astronomers. It is true that the rock-ribbed earth is very old and each
of the “ribs” gives testimony of antiquity. One of the interesting
fossilized remnants found in our Ozark country is the crinoid, commonly
referred to as a sea lily stem.

Had old Father Neptune decided to pick a bouquet of sea lilies for his
wife, the lovely Amphitrite, he could have found them in abundance—on
the floor of the sea where Eureka Springs now stands. According to the
geologists, there were two periods, each millions of years long, and
separated by millions of years, when this region was the bottom of the
sea. The Ozark Mountains are the oldest range on the North American
continent and were at one time higher than they are now. They rose from
the sea, grew old and weathered to a mere plain, and then sank for a
second inundation. During the millions of years that followed, which
geologists call the Mississippian Period, a class of sea lilies, called
Crinoids, lived in the warm waters of this vast sea.

These Crinoids were fixed to the bottom of the sea, preferring a depth
of about 150 fathoms. They were attached permanently, or temporarily,
mouth upward, with a jointed stalk. At the top of the stem there was a
muscular body that had both motor and sensory qualities. It lived upon
minute protozoa and other animalcules, which it absorbed from the sea
water.

When the sea receded from the North American continent these Crinoids
were preserved by nature’s chemistry. They were fossilized into the
Boone Limestone. These fossils are found in abundance in the Ozarks,
especially at Eureka Springs, and in Benton county near Sulphur Springs,
Arkansas. Some of the stems held together and appear as screw-like
formations in the rock. Sometimes they were broken up and the discs or
segments of the stem are scattered through the rock strata. Two hundred
seventy-five million years of the earth’s past lie buried in this Ozark
limestone.

I sometimes take tourists on hikes at Eureka Springs and one of my
favorite trails is over East Mountain that rises abruptly from the
valley floor of this famous stairstep town. Near Onyx Spring I point out
the Crinoids in the rock strata which give mute evidence that this
region was once the bottom of the sea. Some of these sea lily fossils
are almost perfect, others are broken into fragments.

One need not be a geologist, or even a student of geology, to observe
and enjoy the rock formation of the Ozarks. The region is an open book
and even he who runs may read and enjoy it.

There are stories in the stones at Eureka Springs. Tourists who visit
Cork, Ireland usually go out to the village of Blarney, four miles
distant, and take a look at the medieval castle built by Cormac McCarthy
in 1449. On the summit of the castle tower is the famous Blarney Stone
which has been kissed by thousands of people from all parts of the
world. It is an age-old superstition that to kiss this stone endows one
with the gift of coaxing, wheedling, flattery and blarney. Eureka
Springs does not have a “Wheedling Stone,” but it does have the Sliding
Rocks at Little Eureka Spring which tradition has marked with special
purpose. The name, Sliding Rocks, has a double meaning. In the first
place, two large flat rocks, each about twenty feet in diameter, stand
tilted against the mountain side at an angle of forty-five degrees. They
slid down the mountain, ages ago perhaps, to their present location.
That was long before the white man came to drink the “Wonder Water” from
the near-by spring. An oak tree a foot in diameter now stands in the
path which the rocks took in making the descent to their present
position. Putting the rocks in this position was the work of Nature; to
wrap them in a halo of tradition called for the ingenuity of man.

Some person who liked to have fun noticed the Sliding Rocks and started
a custom that developed into a ritual. They became initiation stones for
newlyweds as a part of the charivari ceremony. In the Ozarks, newly
married couples are usually “shivareed” by their friends. They are
serenaded with bells and shotguns and other racket making devices and if
the groom refuses to “treat” with candy and cigars, he is given an
unconventional bath in the river. In some communities the bride and
groom are driven around town in a horse-drawn vehicle or an old jalopy.

At Eureka Springs, it became a practice to have the newlyweds slide down
the perpendicular rock near the spring. It developed into a tradition
and even today honeymooners, others too, try the daring slide to prove
their courage. The surface of the stone is covered with scratches made
by shoe heels that dug-in during the sliding operation. The most
disastrous potential about this fun-making ordeal is the disruption of
the seat of the pants.




                                  XVI
                              THE SPRINGS


There are forty-two springs within the corporate limits of Eureka
Springs. Most of these belong to the city and are included in the
municipal park system. A few are privately owned such as Ozarka in Mill
Hollow, Congress, Lion, Carry Nation and Cold Spring on East Mountain.
Sam A. Leath has counted and named sixty-three springs within a one-mile
radius of the center of town and it is said that there are about 1200
springs in the Western District of Carroll County.

The Basin Spring, so called because of the peculiar depression in the
limestone rock, was first called the Indian Healing Spring and
discovered by a pioneer hunter, Dr. Alvah Jackson, in 1854. It comes
from a cave in the cliff-side and in the early days made a cataract down
the mountain to the valley floor where it joined Little Leatherwood
Creek. About one hundred feet below the cave that houses the spring is a
flat rock, now covered with a deep layer of concrete. In this rock, the
Indians cut two basins, one about eighteen inches in diameter and twelve
inches deep, the other, twelve feet farther down, about five feet in
length and ten inches deep. The larger basin was partially destroyed by
falling rock before the spring was discovered by white men. The smaller
basin is still in existence at the bottom of the Wishing Well. The
fountain from this spring is surrounded by the Basin Circle Park with
band stand, and seats for those who like to loiter in a restful,
picturesque environment.

Sweet Spring is on Spring street around the corner from the post office.
Its original position was in the hollow about two hundred yards below
its present site. When Spring Street was laid out by Powell Clayton and
other city officials in the early eighties, the stream of water was
tapped and a stone pit erected with steps leading down to the fountain.
The spring itself was imprisoned in stone for sanitary reasons. No one
seems to know the origin of the name Sweet for this spring. Benches
beneath the hard maple and ginkgo trees surround this spring and it is a
cool spot for summer loafing.

In the early days, Harding Spring ranked next to Basin in importance. It
has supplied the Palace Bath House with water for bathing for almost a
half a century. It flows from a picturesque cliff on Spring Street with
a rock projection called Lover’s Leap a few feet away. It is one of the
most photographed spots in Eureka Springs.

Congress Spring at the rear of the Congress Spring apartments is “honey
out of the rock” for those who like top quality aqua pura. It comes from
a cave and is said to have been discovered by workmen while blasting
rock on Spring Street. Standing at the spring one may look skyward and
observe a street seventy feet directly above. The rock formation at this
point is a miniature Gibraltar.

Crescent Spring, between the Carnegie Library and Presbyterian Church,
derived its name from the large crescent-shaped ledge of rocks over
which it originally flowed for a distance of fifteen feet. It is now
walled in stone and sheltered with a pointed roofed pagoda.

Continuing on Spring Street, Grotto Spring “on the boulevard” is next.
It has a picturesque position in the mountain side, fronted with a lane
of sycamore trees. The spring was named because of its location in a
natural stone grotto.

On East Mountain there is water almost everywhere. Some of the best
known springs, each with its individual scenic setting, are: Cave,
Little Saucer, Big Saucer, Little Eureka, Onyx, Carry Nation, Soldier
and Cold. Cave spring, near the home of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Ward
Dresbach, flows a stream of pure cold water from a narrow cave. Little
Eureka has a small stream and never goes dry. This spring is known for
the purity of its waters (5½ grains of solids to the gallon) and many
people swear by it. It is said that Little Eureka water won second place
in a world wide contest at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Water
from a spring in Switzerland won first.

The Carry A. Nation spring flows from a cave which the crusader used as
an “ice box” during her sojourn in Eureka Springs (1908-11). This cave
has a constant temperature the year ’round and is an ideal natural
refrigerator. In the days preceding artificial refrigeration, the East
Mountain folks made use of Carry’s cave for storing milk, butter and
other perishables. The water from the cave spring has been piped across
the street to Hatchet Hall, which is now a museum and art center, owned
by the artists, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Freund.

Onyx Spring comes from a cave in which onyx was once secured for making
jewelry. It was formerly called Laundry Spring because of its popularity
as a place for washing clothes. A sarvis tree now grows from the rock
directly over the spring.

Soldier Spring is at the entrance of a small cave at the west end of Nut
Street on East Mountain. According to legend, two bushwackers were
killed at the entrance of this cave by federal soldiers during the Civil
War. A bushwacker is an outlawish fellow who hides behind a bush and
takes a “whack” at you with his rifle gun. In this instance, the
soldiers got the first whack and the stream from the cave was named
Soldier Spring. For several years the large oak tree across the road
from the spring was a natural bee tree and a swarm of honey-makers
occupied it each season. Not many modern towns can boost of a bee tree
within the city limits.

In Mill Hollow we have the famous Ozarka Spring, the only Eureka Springs
water that is commercialized. It is shipped in glass or enamel-lined
railway cars to many cities in the mid-west. Ozarka is a liquid treasure
from nature’s vast laboratory. Other springs in the vicinity are Little
Ozarka, Minnehaha with its Indian legend, and the Bancroft Springs.

Magnetic Spring is one of the most popular springs in the city. The
water was once thought to be radio-active and old-timers claimed it
would magnetize a knife blade. It is a popular place for picnickers and
the city has provided a shelter-house with tables, barbecue pit and
other facilities. Magnetic Hollow has other springs such as Mystic,
which flows from a picturesque cliff, and Bell Spring which makes a
musical sound like the tinkling of a bell. An iron and sulphur spring
was once located near the railway depot, but is not now flowing.

To the west and south of the city, within walking distance, are the
famous Oil and Johnson springs and sixteen springs that feed the city
lake that supplies the municipal water system. A bathhouse once stood
under the cliff between Johnson and Oil Springs. The oil spring is
peculiar in that the waters have an oleaginous feeling when rubbed
between the hands. It was once considered beneficial in diseases of the
scalp.

Lion Spring flows from the cliff near the back door of the home of Mr.
and Mrs. Everett Wheeler, publishers of the Eureka Springs Times-Echo.
For many years the Lion Spring Hotel, operated by “Mother” Belden, was
located on this site. A stone Lion’s head is set up as a dispensary and
the water flows through its mouth. This spring once supplied a stream of
water for Dr. Alvah Jackson’s primitive bathhouse in the rock shelter
fifty feet below. A wash-tub was secured from a sugar camp on Keel’s
Creek and this, with half-a-dozen canteens, constituted the outfit of
the first water-cure establishment in this part of the state.

Calip Spring is on South Main Street near the Elk’s Club. It supplied
the community watering trough in the early days of the town. Fishermen
now use this trough as a depository for minnows. Gadd Spring is farther
north on Main Street and is housed in a rock edifice made from crystal
and other odd-shaped rocks.

In regard to the springs at Eureka, L. J. Kolklosh wrote in 1881:

“No other springs in the world have had so many cures and such a
reputation in so short a time as the Eureka Springs of Arkansas. History
does not record an equal.... Eureka had made a name that has been heard
throughout Christendom.”




                                  XVII
                          THE LAY OF THE TOWN


A crazy quilt is made up of pieces arranged without pattern or order.
Eureka Springs is like that. It is an architectural labyrinth unique
among cities. The recently built annex of the Penn Memorial Baptist
Church has a home for the minister on the third floor. You may enter at
the street-level door on Mountain Street, walk through the rooms—a
distance of about forty feet—and look down upon Owen Street, thirty feet
below. This sounds like an architectural fairy tale, but it is true.
Houses are built like that in this Switzerland of America. In many homes
the street entrance is on the second or third floor, or the house may be
reached by a stairway clinging to the mountain side. One business house
is surrounded by streets like a moat ’round a castle and it has four
street addresses each on a different level. In the early days when the
town was thronged with health seekers who wanted homes near the springs,
terraces were built and hemmed-in with massive stone walls. Houses were
constructed on these terraces with stairways leading from one level to
the other. Frequently a natural cave opens at the backdoor. The yards
and gardens have the appearance of “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon,”
built by Nebuchadnezzar for his hill-loving queen. Some residents may
step from their gardens to the roof of the house while others must climb
stairways to their patch of vegetables.

The first lawsuit in Eureka Springs, according to the old-timers, was
caused by a woman who lived in one of these terraced homesites. She
carelessly threw dishwater out of the backdoor and down a neighbor’s
chimney, damaging the furniture.

Vance Randolph tells about a drunken farmer who was found in the streets
of the town one Saturday night. The pavement is not level by any means
and the poor farmer was walking with one foot on the sidewalk and one in
the gutter. A woman came along and the fellow called on her for help.
“You’re just drunk,” she told him. “Is that it?” he said, much relieved,
“My gosh, I thought maybe I was crippled.”

Eureka Springs is laid out with 238 named streets with no direct cross
intersections. (One or two right-angle crossings have been found since
Ripley featured this item in his “Believe It or Not.”) On the map the
streets look like a bewildered maze with the letters U and V formed
fifty-one times, the letter S thirteen times, O, seven times, and
perhaps other alphabetical curiosities in this labyrinth of streets.
There are five street levels on West Mountain from Main Street in the
valley to the Crescent Hotel on Prospect Avenue.

Many exaggerated tales have been told about this “crazy quilt” town.
There is the fellow, for instance, who doesn’t need a picture window in
his house to observe the scenery. He merely looks up the chimney and
watches his neighbor drive the cows home from the pasture. And don’t
forget the well digger who was digging a well on East Mountain. When
down about forty feet the bottom of the well fell out and he landed (on
his feet) right in the middle of Main Street. They had to change their
plans and dig the well up instead of down in order to strike water.

Eureka Springs has only two business thoroughfares, Main Street in the
valley from Planer Hill to the railroad station, and Spring Street which
branches off of Main at the City Auditorium and winds around the
mountain to the Crescent Hotel. Once, in the early days, a feud
developed among the merchants on Main (then called Mud Street) and they
built a high board fence right down the middle of the street. This made
the traffic lanes so narrow that a wagon could barely squeeze through.
The fence was soon removed by order of the city authorities. Spring
Street is lined with flowing springs—Sweet, Harding, Congress, Crescent,
Grotto, and Dairy on the Harmon Playgrounds, once the site of the old
auditorium. This street was engineered by Governor Powell Clayton (they
always called him “governor”) who helped dress up the town in the early
eighties. Sweet spring was “moved” from the hollow behind the post
office to its present location on the Spring Street level.

In addition to the street layouts, other believe it or nots in the city
are the Basin Park Hotel, “eight floors and every floor a ground floor,”
the St. Elizabeth’s Church, “entered through the steeple,” and Pivot
Rock, sixteen inches in diameter at the base and thirty-two feet across
at the top. The hotel stands against the side of the mountain with its
street level door on Spring. It is bridged from the rear to paths on the
mountain side at four different levels. The “steeple” of the church is
in reality a detached bell-tower. It is on the Crescent Grade level and
steps lead down to the church which is set on a terrace held in place by
a twenty-foot wall. A rock can be tossed from this terrace to the roof
of the Carnegie Library about one hundred feet below on another street.
The travel distance between the two locations is about one-fourth mile.

The numerous stairways of wood and stone, connecting street levels, have
given rise to the name, “Stairstep Town.” Cora Pinkley Call used this
title for her book on Eureka Springs, published in 1953. Some of the
leading stairways are: Jacob’s Ladder, Sweet Springs, Magnetic Spring
Skyway, and the “upway” from Spring Street to Eureka Street. Jacob’s
Ladder is a series of wooden steps up East Mountain from the Main Street
level to the Skydoor residential district on the mountain side. Rest
stops are provided along the way in the form of seats where the old may
rest and the young, perchance, do a little courting. The Sweet Spring
steps are of stone and they lead from the spring, through the tree tops,
to the terminus of two streets three hundred yards above. The Magnetic
Spring stairway is at the junction of Main street with Magnetic Drive,
reaching up to Hillside (Depot Grade). These steps are now covered with
moss and seldom used. It was once a popular walk-way from the Sanitarium
on the hill to Magnetic Spring. The winding “up way” from the foot of
Mountain Street at the Baptist Church is a short cut to a private home
called Mount Air. Taking this stairway reminds us of the tourist who
asked a native Ozarker if he was on the right road to Springfield.
“Well, not exactly,” he replied, “This road just moseys along for a
spell, then it turns into a pig trail, then a squirrel track, and
finally runs up a tree and ends in a knot-hole.” If you take this
stairway and path to the upper street, turn to the left and follow the
path around the mountain, you end up at the rear entrance to the fourth
floor of the Basin Park Hotel.

    [Illustration: Airplane View of the City]




                                 XVIII
                         THE STREET CAR SYSTEM


Eureka Springs at one time had the most unique street car system in the
nation. It began as a mule car line in 1891, but was electrified seven
years later. It remained in operation until 1923 when it was crowded out
by jalopies which invaded the town. The streets were not wide enough to
accommodate both the street car and the Model T. The total length of the
line was about three miles, but the two terminals of the main line were
only half a mile apart. The entire system was a single track with three
passing switches. The track was standard gauge and placed near the curb
at one side of the street, as the streets were too narrow for center
tracks.

John T. Brown, writing in “Trolley Sparks,” says that the Citizens
Railway Company of Eureka Springs had a total of twelve cars, five of
which were closed cars operated by one man, six two-man open cars, and
one work-car which was also used as a party car. Except for two of the
cars, all were originally mule-drawn cars purchased second hand from
Houston, Texas. These cars were motorized with second hand electrical
equipment purchased from the Detroit Street Railways. In 1904, two new
summer cars were obtained from the St. Louis Car Company.

The Daily Times-Echo in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of April 24,
1905, says:

“In no other city on the continent can there be found a street railway
that leads such a winding course around and up and down the
mountain-sides as does the Citizens Electric Railway of Eureka Springs.
As you alight at the depot of the St. Louis and North Arkansas Railway
you find a well-equipped street car there in waiting, and presently you
are swung up and around the mountain side along what appears to be a
ledge or precipice, and to the timid, it seems that in each instance
there is danger of the car being hurled to the valley below. But really
such a possibility is very remote, for during all the years the line has
been in operation there has never been a serious accident. To make
safety doubly sure, the far-seeing management has had guard rails laid
all along this section of the line. From the depot up the mountain side
to the intersection with the main line at the Crescent Spring, a little
more than half a mile, the ascent amounts to a fraction over 101 feet,
or a little more than 200 feet to the mile. The main line, which circles
around West Mountain, traversing the most popular thorofare of the city
and passing most all the famous springs and principal institutions, is
not without its grades and wondrous curves.... At the Auditorium (now
the Harmon Playgrounds), the track commences a most charming and
tortuous ascent, and a feat of engineering that has challenged the
admiration of many scientific men who have visited the resort. A roadbed
had to be graded around the mountain side at angles that would seem
ridiculous were it anywhere else than in this unusual mountain range.
One car will be only a few yards from and above the other, and
apparently going in the same direction when actually, they are headed
toward opposite ends of the line. These ends, however, are only 300
yards apart, one end resting in the valley while the other is at the
mountain’s peak. From the Crescent Hotel to the Auditorium there is a
descent of 140 feet.

“The equipment and service on this street railway is better than can be
found in many cities of far greater population than Eureka Springs, and
the entire system is a source of gratification and pride to our people.
Visitors make the valley echo with their merry shouts as they are
carried around its course in the beautifully decorated and lighted
trolley party cars, and the bands and orchestras of the city are
frequent participants in these festivities.”

    [Illustration: Trolley car.]




                                  XIX
                            CARRY A. NATION


Carry A. Nation was a militant voice in the “wilderness of sin” at the
turn of the century. Her three hatchets, which she named “Faith, Hope
and Charity,” cut deeply into the liquor industry. Not that the liquor
she destroyed in her attacks on bars and saloons amounted to a great
deal, but her influence in fostering nation-wide prohibition was far
reaching. She spent considerable time in jail and paid numerous fines,
but this did not lesson her enthusiasm for the cause to which she
devoted her life. Carry hated liquor, tobacco, rouge, lip-stick, and
immorality in all its phases. She operated under the unwritten law
which, she thought, superseded man-made legislation. Even some of the
churches did not condone her radical ways and closed their doors to her.
But she organized her own.

Carry married twice; first to a young fellow in Cass County, Missouri,
who called himself “doctor.” He was addicted to drink and Carry could
not reform him so she left him and returned to the home of her parents.
He died shortly after their baby was born. Her second marriage was to
David Nation, a lawyer, newspaper man, and later, a Campbellite
preacher. This marriage fared better than the first one but it was not a
happy affair. Carry cut the swath for the family and David had to string
along as best he could.

Carry Nation’s militant crusades against the liquor traffic began at
Kiowa, Kansas about 1900. After “cleaning up” the town to her
satisfaction she turned her face toward Wichita. She met with
considerable opposition in the big town and her raids landed her in
jail, but friends paid her out. At Topeka she used the hatchet for the
first time in her raids.

After a few years of raiding and smashing she went into chautauqua to
lecture on temperance. She made a speaking tour in Europe in 1908 and
landed in jail in Scotland where she had to serve the full sentence.
(The Scotch did not like to see their whiskey spilled). In 1909, at the
age of sixty-three, she bought a little farm near Alpena in Boone
County, Arkansas where she spent a part of her time during the year that
followed. Then she selected Eureka Springs as her retirement home and
purchased a two-story frame house on Steele Street which she named
Hatchet Hall. She decided to start a college at Eureka Springs for the
teaching of temperance. She called it the Carry A. Nation College and
erected a frame building near her home for class rooms. But the college
did not last long for in 1911, while making a temperance speech from a
buggy in the street in front of the Basin Circle, she had a stroke, and
died a few days later. Her body was taken to her girlhood home at
Belton, Missouri for burial.




                                   XX
                       A BANK ROBBERY THAT FAILED


On the night of September 26, 1922, five men were camped in the woods on
the hill near where the Mount Air Court is now located, well hidden from
the traffic on U. S. Highway 62. Sitting around the camp fire were Si
Wilson, Marcus Hendrix, a 21-year-old Indian, a man named Cowan, and the
two Price brothers, Charlie and George. They were desperate Oklahoma
outlaws from the Cookson Hills, remnants of the old Henry Starr gang.
Their business at Eureka Springs was to rob the First National Bank.

Sitting around the bed of coals this September night, the outlaws
discussed their plans. Charlie Price, the leader, did most of the
talking. He outlined the plan for the robbery on the morrow at 12:05
P.M. when practically all business houses would be closed for the lunch
hour. Hendrix was to remain in the car at the front of the bank, ready
for a quick getaway.

“I guess you fellers know what you’re doing,” said Wilson, who had
recently joined the gang. “But don’t forget what Sam Lockard and Henry
Starr said. They warned you that Eureka Springs was a deathtrap.”

Price laughed and said that it would be easy because everything was well
planned.

“We’d better hit the hay and get some sleep,” said Charlie. “Big day
tomorrow.” As he rolled into his blankets he remembered to wind his
watch. He turned the stem carefully in the darkness but fate took a hand
and a little extra pressure sent the hands around one revolution without
his knowledge. His faithful old watch had played a trick on him.

At exactly 11:05 A.M., mistaken by the bandits to be 12:05 P.M., a car
drove up in front of the First National Bank on Spring Street. Hendrix
remained at the wheel while the four others entered the bank. The story
of the robbery and its tragic aftermath has been told in newspapers, by
Horace H. Brown in Startling Detective Magazine, and by Cora Pinkley
Call in her book “Eureka Springs—The Stair-Step Town.”

Members of the bank staff on duty on September 27, 1922, were: Tobe
Smith, cashier, Fred Sawyer, teller, Mrs. Maude Shuman, Miss Loma Sawyer
and Miss Jewel Davidson. Customers in the bank when the robbers entered
were: Sam Holland, Robert Easley, John Easley and Luther Wilson. Others
who walked in while the holdup was in progress were: John K. Butt,
Claude Arbuckle and Bob Bowman, clerk at the Basin Park Hotel.

Tobe Smith saw the four men enter the bank and when they drew their guns
he stepped on the burglar alarm which had connections at the Bank of
Eureka Springs, a block up the street, and the Basin Park Hotel, the
same distance in the other direction. The robbers did not know this but
lined up the occupants of the bank, face to the wall, and proceeded to
scoop up all available cash and bonds. While doing this Charlie Price
noticed the clock on the wall. The hands stood at exactly 11:10 A.M.
Time had played its trick.

In the meantime the alarm had caused a furor of excitement in town, and
C. E. Burson of the Bank of Eureka Springs had sent a bullet from his
pistol that punctured a rear tire of the bandit’s car. Young Hendrix,
getting excited, started the car slowly down Spring Street but a bullet
struck him as he reached the junction with Center Street and he turned
the car into a railing at the head of a stairway. He was captured
without offering resistance.

By this time the four bandits had left the bank with the money in a
sack, taking two of the bank employees as hostages. They knew they would
have to fight their way out and sought to escape down the stairway by
the Times-Echo office which leads to Center Street. Guns were popping
and bullets flying everywhere. Si Wilson was killed instantly, George
Price died a few minutes after being taken to Dr. R. H. Huntington’s
hospital, Charlie Price died from his wounds a few days later.

Cowan was wounded. He and Hendrix were sentenced to terms in the state
penitentiary.

Eureka Springs citizens who battled with the outlaws were: Ernie Jordan,
Joe McKimmey, Jess Littrell, Robert Bowman, Homer Brittan and Sam
Harmon. The story of their courage in defeating this desperate gang
without loss of a man was told in newspapers throughout the country.
None of them were wounded except Ernie Jordan who received a powder burn
in the face. F. O. Butt, Eureka Springs attorney, was president of the
First National Bank at that time. He had his office over the bank
building. He was glad to see the sack of money and bonds returned
without loss. It had been dropped on the Center Street stairway during
the fight.




                                  XXI
                           INSPIRATION POINT


The Ozarks is a land of dreams. Some of them succeed, some fail.
Traveling through the hill country we find numerous ruins of partially
built projects, that reveal the urge of man to build and perpetuate.
“Coin” Harvey’s Pyramid at Monte Ne, the Kingston Project in Madison
County, the old Chautauqua Assembly at Sulphur Springs, the numerous old
hotels at once-popular watering places, ghosts of a past era when the
water cure was a national fad, social and cultural colonies, the
lengthened shadows of promoters or reformers, that existed for a few
years and then passed into oblivion. These are monuments to dreams that
failed or prospered for a season and then passed out.

On the other hand there are numerous active enterprises in the hills
such as Ted Richmond’s Wilderness Library in Newton County, and the
famed “School of the Ozarks” near Hollister, Missouri. Other projects
have been built with broad business perspective such as the town of Bull
Shoals. Churches have been successful in establishing permanent
institutions such as the Sequoyah Assembly at Fayetteville and the
Subiaco Academy in Logan County. Some projects with more than local
interest were started by one person and completed by others.

The unique stone building called “The Castle,” located at Inspiration
Point in Carroll County, on U. S. Highway 62, six miles west of Eureka
Springs, was originally the dream of a Texas inventor and oil man. In
the 1920’s, W. O. Mowers of Dallas selected this scenic point as the
site of a palatial country home because of its comparative isolation and
the view of White River 500 feet below. Being a world traveler, it
reminded him of scenery on the Rhine River in Germany with which he was
familiar, and he visualized the replica of an old German castle. The
rock used in the construction of the building was quarried near the
village of Beaver, five miles away. Each stone was cut to fit a certain
place in the structure and was put together like a jigsaw puzzle. The
living room was made 30 by 44 feet, with a huge fireplace at each end.
Pointed rock covered the exterior, following an Egyptian plan of
architecture.

After spending about $80,000 on the project the Texas man was unable to
complete it. In 1932, the building and several hundred acres of land
were purchased by Charles Reign Scoville, a noted traveling Evangelist,
of the Christian Church. He completed the building and made it a
regional center for evangelism and religious training. This scenic spot
overlooking the river and the spacious valley was a great inspiration to
the preacher-evangelist, so he named it Inspiration Point. This name has
now become a permanent geographical feature. Mr. Scoville lived only a
few years to enjoy his dream.

In 1938, Mrs. Scoville gave the property to Phillips University of Enid,
Oklahoma, to be a Christian center where individuals and groups might
come for spiritual refreshment, and for study and training. The project
has made rapid growth during the fifteen years it has been operated as a
service institution. It now has an assembly hall and dormitories where
groups may come for a day or a week, or longer. As many as 100 persons
may be cared for at one time. Rev. and Mrs. George P. Rossman are
directors and managers of the project.

The big attraction at the present time at Inspiration Point is the Fine
Arts Colony held for six weeks each summer. It is directed by Professor
Henry Hobart, of Phillips University, and provides instruction in music
(piano, organ, voice, theory, band and orchestra instruments), drama,
speech and painting. The opera workshop produces a light opera each
summer, which is taken on tour after having been produced locally.

Groups begin coming to Inspiration Point in April and continue until
November. Tourists are welcome at the Castle at all times of the year
and they come by the thousands to see its unique construction and to
view the articles of antique and historical interest left by Mr. and
Mrs. Scoville. The view of the White River Valley from “The Point,”
which includes the ranch of Dr. and Mrs. Ross Van Pelt, is one of the
finest in America.

    [Illustration: The Castle at Inspiration Point]




                                  XXII
                         DISTINGUISHED VISITORS


Eureka Springs has had many distinguished visitors during its
seventy-five years of history. Some of them made only brief visits to
our scenic city while others spent several weeks and returned from year
to year. One of them who thought of Eureka Springs as an earthly
paradise was the chewing gum king, William Wrigley, Jr.

Mr. Wrigley first visited Eureka Springs in 1902 and put up at the
Thatch Hotel where he spent most of the winter. He returned in the
autumn of 1903 and spent about three months at the Chautauqua Hotel,
later moving to a cottage on Linwood Avenue. It has been said that no
greater admirer of scenic beauty ever came to the Ozarks than William
Wrigley.

His greatest pleasure was to get out on the trails on horseback with Sam
Leath, then acting as guide in charge of the Eureka Springs Bureau of
Information and the Crescent stables. A canyon five miles west of the
city was named after him for this was one of the spots he especially
enjoyed.

The chewing gum king, whose net income was $1,125,000 in 1904, took a
liking to Eureka Springs and proposed to buy all the land within a
radius of three miles of the city and make it into a public park if the
city authorities would agree to keep it policed and free from junk and
garbage. The hills and valleys were then covered with vast growths of
virgin timber which Mr. Wrigley wished to preserve. But the city
government turned him down and he went to Catalina Island, off the
California coast, where he spent millions in development. Many noted
writers such as Zane Grey and Mary Roberts Rhinehart located on the
island as a result of his project.

Another famous visitor was the landscape artist, F. S. VanNess who came
to Eureka Springs from Chicago in October, 1902. Sam Leath took him on
twenty-eight rides within two weeks, observing the splendor of the
Flaming Fall Revue, but the artist did not paint a single picture. When
Mr. Leath asked him why he did not paint he replied that the color was
beyond his reach; that it would be an insult to the Creator to try to
put it on canvas. Later, after the color had faded, he returned to the
Ozarks and Mr. Leath guided him over the same route. This time he
painted profusely, both landscapes and items of human interest. Two of
his paintings may be seen today in the lobby of the Basin Park Hotel.
One portrays a group of gamblers seated around a table, the other is
that of old Dr. Messick on his burro which was painted in November,
1902. Dr. Messick was a retired Chicago doctor who “went native” and
spent his last days living and practicing medicine in the hills near
Eureka Springs.




                                 XXIII
                               HOG SCALD


Hog Scald, ten miles south of Eureka Springs is an undiscovered country,
so far as tourists are concerned, but for riches of tradition and
excellence of scenic beauty it cannot be surpassed in the Ozark
highlands. It is a land of clear, gushing springs, laughing brooks and
tumbling waterfalls; water everywhere, spilling over rocky ledges and
twisting happily through granite-lined canyons. It is a land of massive
oak, stately pine and verdant cedar, of purple grapes that cling to
broad leafed vines and red berries that tinge the cheeks of the hills
with romantic blushes. It seems a land of divine favor and it is indeed
fitting that the early pioneers of the thirties and forties found here,
in a temple not built with hands, the ideal place to worship God. Under
a giant ledge overlooking Hog Scald creek they held worship for more
than three-quarters of a century.

The sturdy people who trekked into these hills from Kentucky and
Tennessee were the salt of the earth in character. And like their
Puritan and Cavalier sires, they did not forget to give thanks to God
for the Promised Land of the Ozarks. The visitor who loiters for a
season in this Eden of beauty will realize, a little, the influence of
such an environment upon these sturdy pioneers who had their feet deeply
set in the soil of mediocrity, so far as learning is concerned, but who
saw the thumb prints of God in every work of nature.

The spacious natural shelter below Auger Falls on Hog Scald creek
attracted these settlers as a suitable place to hold religious services.
Here was an auditorium on one side of the stream with pulpit of rock for
the minister, and choir stalls for the singers, in a convenient shelter
opposite.

Between audience and minister was the immersion pool where the rites of
baptism could be administered without leaving the sanctuary. The drone
of falling water from Auger Falls was just loud enough to be the grand
piano divine, never out of tune, always doing its part to make the
service effective. When the minister prayed, these musical waters seemed
to echo, “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money, come ye and buy and eat—without money and without
price.”

In later years Hog Scald became an active community center. It was a
meeting place of the settlers for such activities as butchering hogs,
canning wild fruits and making sorghum molasses. The idea originated
during the Civil War when the entire valley was a Confederate camp. The
inviting springs and cozy shelters made it an ideal camp site. The
shut-ins at the elbow of the falls now called Fern Dell offered
opportunity to hem in herds of wild hogs and kill them in a cove
convenient to the butchering grounds.

Hog Scald creek secured its name from the practice of soldiers in
scalding the wild hogs in the kettle-like holes in the rocky creek bed.
The water was diverted from its regular course into these holes, which
are four or five feet deep and averaging six feet in width. The method
of heating the water to the scalding point was done by dropping hot
stones into the pits. The hogs were then immersed in the hot water until
their hides were soaked sufficiently for the removal of the hair with a
knife.

When the war ended, natives of the community continued this practice and
enlarged upon it. Families would drive many miles through the hills to
camp at Hog Scald, butchering hogs, canning wild fruits, and enjoying a
few days of social contact. And always there was church on Sunday. The
young folks might play party games on the rocks Saturday night, but the
fun ceased at midnight. Sunday was set aside for the good things of the
soul.

It has been said that the mills of the gods grind slowly, but the
results of grinding are sure. The customs of these sturdy pioneers of
the Ozark hills have borne fruit in a sober, righteous and contented
people. Who can doubt the influence of this quaint sanctuary of nature
in the lives of these hillfolks?[20]

A number of tall tales have been told about Hog Scald. An old-timer told
Vance Randolph that he lived near there in the early 1880’s. He said
that there used to be a bramble thicket near the potholes, where the
road is now. “We used to get the water good and hot,” he explained, “An’
throw the hogs in alive. They’d jump out a-squealin’, an’ run right
through them bramble bushes. The thorns would take the bristles off
slicker’n a whistle, so we didn’t have to scrape ’em at all.”

Another tale about Hog Scald was told to me recently. It is said to have
happened about the turn of the century. The lay of the land is pretty
rugged in the Hog Scald neighborhood and one farmer had planted corn and
pumpkins on a steep hillside above the hollow. He said he did the
planting with a shotgun, shooting the seeds into the hillside. About the
time the planting was completed one of the farmer’s brood sows wandered
away and he didn’t see her all that summer. When it came time to harvest
the crop that fall, the farmer climbed the hill, holding on to the corn
stalks and pumpkin vines to keep from falling. The pumpkins were so big
that it took only about a dozen to cover an acre. In pulling himself up,
he accidentally tore a pumpkin loose from its bearings and it started
rolling down the hill. At the foot of the hill it hit a low ledge of
rock and burst open. Much to the farmer’s surprise, out jumped the lost
sow and thirteen pigs.

I was telling that story down in the Basin Circle Park at Eureka Springs
one day. When I got through one of the old-timers asked me if I had ever
heard of the big kettle the blacksmiths built at Eureka Springs in the
year 1901. I told him that I had never heard of it. “Well,” he said, “it
was some kettle. It was so big that the men working on one side couldn’t
hear the men hammering on the opposite side.” I pretended to be
astonished and asked him what on earth they wanted with such a big
kettle. “Why,” he said, solemn like, “to stew them Hog Scald pumpkins
in.”

    [Illustration:                                        Stafford Photo
     Hog Scald Falls below the pits where the pioneers did the scalding]




                                  XXIV
                           BOUNTIES OF NATURE


“Never have I found a place, or a season, without beauty,” wrote the
poet, Charles Erskine Scott Wood.

The scenic charm of Eureka Springs is a challenge to the poet’s pen and
the artist’s brush. Each season has its own style of beauty that helps
erase monotony from man’s benighted world. Spring comes with myriad
flowers. The lilac and the honey suckle spill their perfumes lavishly on
the hill and in the valley. Early summer spreads a carpet of sweet peas
that have escaped from gardens in years past. A little later the white
clematis appears and wraps the whole town in beauty. Hundreds of
varieties of flowers, reflecting all the varied hues of Nature’s prism,
are here from early March until late November.

The tree lover in Eureka Springs has a wealth of beauty for his
enjoyment. The elms and maples are the first heralds of spring to coax
the bees into action and open Nature’s wooing season. Then comes the
sarvis, wild plum, redbud, and dogwood to add perfume and color to the
fantasia of spring. In early May the long, purple, bell-shaped flowers
of the Paulownia trees hang from bare branches.

The Paulownia or Princess tree is a native of Russia and named for the
Princess Paulownia, daughter of the Czar, Paul I, who died in 1801. Its
fruit is a green pod as large as a walnut which ripens in autumn and
bursts open in winter to loosen the feathery seeds for the wind’s
dispersal. The broken pods cling to the tree until pushed off by new
growths the following season.

The Ginkgo is one of our rarest trees. We have four of them in Eureka
Springs, three on the Post Office grounds and one, a “female” tree
producing fruit, on the property adjacent to the Sweet Spring park. This
tree, of Chinese origin, is said to be the oldest tree in history.
Botanists tell us that the fern is older than the tree. The Ginkgo with
its fern-like leaves appears to be a link between the two. The fruit
matures in late summer and has an offensive odor. The seed is bitter,
but it is said that the Chinese roast them as we do peanuts and use them
for food.

Other interesting trees in Eureka Springs are the tulip with its
colorful bloom in May, the catalpas that flower in June, the magnolia
and holly which retain their green leaves throughout the year, the cedar
and pine, the mulberry with its artistic leaf, a buckeye or two, a lone
fir on the Annie House property, a “smoke tree” at “the Little House
Around the Corner,” and a dozen varieties of oaks. The black gum and
hard maple wear gorgeous colors in the “Flaming Fall Revue” and have a
high rating of popularity.




                                  XXV
                            “UPS AND DOWNS”


Geographically, Eureka Springs is an “up and down” town. There are no
level spots in the down-town area large enough for a baseball diamond or
a circus tent. This problem has been solved, however, by bulldozing off
the top of a mountain at the edge of town and building a stadium. We can
now play the great American game and hope for the visitation of a
circus.

The town has had its share of economic problems which it has managed to
solve satisfactorily. It has been temporarily down, but never out. One
of the first blows to the local economy of the town was the removal of
the railroad shops in 1911. This stopped an important pay roll which the
town needed to balance its economy. No other industries have been
developed to take its place.

For a number of years Eureka Springs was the outstanding watering place,
not only in Arkansas, but throughout the entire midwest, but after the
turn of the century other resorts became prominent and offered stiff
competition. New scientific discoveries for combatting disease
influenced the attitude of the people toward water as a cure-all and
many health resorts folded-up as a result of this policy. Eureka Springs
held on tenaciously but found it necessary to stress recreation along
with health in order to survive. As a combined health and pleasure
resort it weathered the depression although business was at low ebb for
a number of years. Houses were torn down and the lumber shipped to
western Kansas and other sections of the country. Crescent College
closed its doors in the early thirties and a few years later the
Crescent Hotel was discontinued. The building was bought by Norman Baker
in the late thirties and opened as a hospital. But this institution ran
into difficulties and was closed two or three years later. The Crescent,
which had been opened as a hotel in 1886, remained closed during World
War II but in 1945 Chicago business men bought the property and
remodeled the building. It opened as a hotel with Dwight Nichols as
manager in June, 1946. It is now one of the town’s greatest assets.

Eureka Springs had a mild boom at the close of the war. Home-seekers
poured in, bought homes, entered into business or went into retirement.
A number of motels and other business enterprises were built and a
community began a new epoch as a resort. The population increased from a
depression low of about 1,700 to around 3,000 in 1954, counting the
suburban areas. Civic improvements included paving the streets, the
voting of bonds for revamping the sewer system, the sinking of a deep
well to secure an adequate water supply, and the erection of an ultra
modern public school building. Several of the churches of the town have
repaired their buildings, or built new additions, and improved their
facilities. Business buildings have been enlarged and improved and many
new homes built. The tourist season now opens in April and continues
until November with a few winter visitors. It is estimated that about
150,000 tourists visit Eureka Springs during the year. Some make only
brief stops, others stay two or three weeks for rest and recreation.

Eureka Springs has become a popular retirement city and the people of
this class add substantially to the town’s economy, but the bulk of the
revenue is from the tourist trade. Since this business is seasonable, a
few small industries are needed to provide pay rolls and help balance
the economy. Writers, artists and craftsmen find this the ideal location
for their activities.

Eureka Springs has had its ups and downs through the years with a
leveling off toward normalcy since the mild boom following the war. With
Table Rock Dam on White River assured, and Beaver Dam farther up the
stream a possibility, the outlook for the future is bright. The town
will continue as a combined health and pleasure resort, an art and
retirement center, a literary mecca, and a haven for hobbiests. It is
developing a festival atmosphere which has the earmarks of permanency.

    [Illustration: Modern public school building erected at Eureka
    Springs in 1951.]




                                  XXVI
                        THE STORY OF BLUE SPRING


I came, I saw, I concurred that Blue Spring is one of Mother Nature’s
miracles. It was a quarter of a century ago when I first visited this
lovely spot, located seven miles northwest of Eureka Springs. Since that
time I have been a frequent visitor to this liquid giant from the
unknown.

Blue Spring is the outlet of a subterranean river with a constant flow
of about 38,000,000 gallons of pure water daily. It rises straight up
from its mysterious bed, forming a circle about seventy feet in
diameter. The depth is unknown. Soundings have been made, once in the
nineties, the old-timers say, with strong bed cord attached to a 125
pound anvil, and again near the turn of the century by a party of
engineers who let a 16 pound hammer down 512 feet. Neither weight
reached bottom. The pressure of the water was sufficient to defy
penetration into the blue depths.

The water taken from this spring is clear, white and transparent as
plate glass, but the water in the spring is blue in appearance.
Sometimes it is almost indigo in hue, but when taken out of the spring
is white and transparent. A geologist who tested the water recently
expressed the opinion that it is glacial water similar to that of Lake
Louise in the Pacific Northwest. It was the opinion of some of the
old-timers who lived near the spring that the water came from Kings
River twenty miles to the east. When this stream was on the rise, the
spring had increased flow, so they said.

Many legends have been handed down about this famous spring. One of them
is that Spanish adventurers who supposedly invaded the Ozark country in
the latter part of the eighteenth century, sunk a mine shaft at the
present location of Blue Spring. They walled the shaft with logs.
Several hundred feet down they struck an underground river and a
geyser-like eruption occurred. Then it settled down and became a
peaceful river with the old mine shaft as an outlet. The pioneer English
settlers named it Blue Spring because of the blueness of the water.

This spring was once the site of an Indian encampment, according to Sam
A. Leath who is an authority on Indian lore in the Ozarks. The cliffs
had hieroglyphics to tell the story, but most of them have been erased
by the hand of time. Numerous arrow heads and Indian relics have been
found in the vicinity. The historic “Trail of Tears” over which the
Cherokees trekked, passed near Blue Spring.

The pioneers saw economic possibilities in this vast flow of water and
built a dam a few hundred yards below the spring near where the spring
branch enters White River. A flouring and saw mill, operated by a
turbine, was built on that spot. But the mill is now gone and only the
turbine remains. Plans were once made to pipe the water to the railroad
some three miles away and ship it for drinking purposes. No analysis of
the water is available, but it is said to be soft and pure.

The dam below the spring forms a moss-lined lagoon that is a picture out
of the book. Rainbow trout sport in the crystal water to test the angler
who tempts them with his lure.

Blue Spring with its 400 acres of enchanted woodlands in a horseshoe
bend of White River is owned and operated by Mrs. Evan Booth, formerly
of Chicago. She lives in a picturesque modern cottage overlooking the
spring and lagoon and keeps the project open the year around as a
tourist attraction.

    [Illustration: Blue Spring.]




                                 XXVII
                           SCENIC ATTRACTIONS


One of the great attractions of Eureka Springs as a tourist resort is
its scenery. In both the city and the adjacent countryside we have folds
of hills that please the eye of the observer and captivate his fancy. “I
will look unto the hills from whence cometh my help.” The hills and
hollows of the Western District of Carroll County have been a lure for
tourists for three-quarters of a century. Combined with the springs of
pure water, this scenery is perhaps our greatest asset. No where in the
Ozarks do the hills lift their flinty shoulders to the sky in more
picturesque form than in the vicinity of Eureka Springs.

This region is traversed by two crystal rivers, the White and the Kings,
and numerous smaller spring-fed streams. It is interesting to know these
streams and visualize their scenic attributes on the calendar of the
year.

The Eureka Springs country has many scenic oddities. Pivot Rock, two
miles north of town, is a natural curiosity, featured in Ripley’s
“Believe It or Not.” It stands 15 feet high, is 30 feet in diameter at
the top, and has a stem or base that measures about 16 inches. Nearby is
a Natural Bridge, small but perfectly formed.

In the Hog Scald country, ten miles south of Eureka Springs, and
Penitentiary Hollow, a few miles beyond, there are 16 beautiful
waterfalls, several of which are not seen by tourists because of their
isolated location. Jim Oliver’s Revilo Ranch south of town is a beauty
spot in the sheltered hills which tourists enjoy. “The Narrows” and the
village of Beaver on White River provide views that are worth going to
see.

Inspiration Point, six miles west on U. S. 62, is one of the most scenic
views in the Ozarks. Other views along the Skyline Drive have similar
attraction. Blue Spring, a mile from the Point, is a beauty spot that
almost defies the pen of man to describe it. Onyx Cave is a must for the
tourist who enjoys subterranean scenery. It is located 7 miles northeast
of Eureka Springs and is open all year.

The town of Eureka Springs itself is a scenic attraction that never
grows old. The views from East Mountain, Trail’s End and the top of the
Crescent Hotel on West Mountain all help add to the town’s reputation as
the “Switzerland of America.”




                                 XXVIII
                          THE BASIN PARK HOTEL


The Daily Times-Echo of Eureka Springs on April 24, 1905, carried the
following announcement:

“The first grand opening of the Basin Park Hotel, now nearing
completion, will take place July 1, and the event promises to be one of
the grandest in the history of Eureka Springs. T. J. Brumfield, under
whose management the Hotel Wadsworth has been so successful, and who has
earned the reputation of being one of the best caterers in the South,
has been selected as manager for this splendid hostelry, which is an
assurance of a large patronage.

“This grand structure was built by W. M. Duncan and his associates, and
contains one hundred guest rooms in addition to spacious parlors and
dens.... The hotel will be conducted strictly on the European plan, in
connection with a first-class cafe on the second floor, occupying the
entire depth of the north end of the building on this floor.... A
special feature and a most attractive one is the feasible plan of easy
fire escapes, as from each story to the Basin Park reservation, back of
the hotel, iron bridges will be built so that in case of fire the entire
house, were it crowded, could be emptied in three minutes. There is
complete fire protection throughout the building, although it is
practically fire-proof.... The cost of this hotel in its entirety,
including furnishings, will exceed $50,000....”

The grand opening mentioned above took place July 1, 1905, forty-nine
years ago and the hotel has been in continuous operation since that
date. If it were built today it would cost several times as much as it
did half a century ago.

The Basin Park occupies a central position in the down-town section of
Eureka Springs and is adjacent to the Basin Circle Park which contains
the famous Basin Spring. The structure has been featured in Ripley’s
“Believe It or Not” as “An eight story hotel with every floor a ground
floor.” Bridge-walks at the rear of the building lead to the Basin Park
Reservation, a wooded tract owned by the city and originally containing
twenty-eight acres. The top floor contains the popular Roof Garden and
Ball Room. The hotel is strictly modern throughout with automatic
elevator and bath facilities.

The Basin Park changed ownership several times in the half-century, but
the man most closely associated with its operation through the years is
Claude A. Fuller, attorney and former mayor and congressman. The hotel
was owned and managed by Joe Parkhill, nephew of Mr. Fuller, from 1945
to 1954. Early this year it was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Pat Mathews.
Mrs. Mathews is the former Dorothy Fuller, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.
A. Fuller. The Mathews have added new furnishings and made other
improvements since assuming management.




                                  XXIX
                              THE CRESCENT


  Although upon a summer day,
  You’ll lightly turn from me away,
  When autumn leaves are scattered wide,
  You’ll often linger by my side.
  But when the snow the earth doth cover,
  Then you will be my ardent lover.

This homely verse, carved in stone above the fireplace in the spacious
lobby of the Crescent Hotel, is a reminder that comfort is an
outstanding feature in a hotel. In this “Castle in the Air High Atop the
Ozarks” we find comfort combined with convenience in a big way. This
magnificent hostelry requires but little introduction to people familiar
with Summer Resorts. It stands on a high point overlooking Eureka
Springs and the view from the Lookout, a-top the hotel, is one of the
finest in the Ozarks. The Crescent is a five story stone, fire-proof
building with twenty-seven acres of grounds. It represents an investment
of over $300,000 in 1884-1886 and would cost three or four times that
amount to build it today. It has large rooms, wide verandas, and sun
parlors and can easily accommodate two hundred and fifty guests. It is
equipped with swimming pool, tennis courts, shuffle board, horseshoe
courts, bowling alley, pool and billiard tables, recreational rooms, and
provides scenic bus trips, horseback riding, hay-rides, barbecues,
wiener roasts, and dancing for the entertainment of guests. The food
served in the dining room has been famous for more than half a century.
The Crescent is popular with both convention groups and the general
public.

The Crescent Hotel was erected by the Eureka Improvement Company in
1884-1886. The board of directors was composed of Powell Clayton, R. C.
Kerens, C. W. Rogers, Logan H. Roots, John O’Day, James Dunn, B. Baker
and D. A. Nichols. Powell Clayton was president of the company, Logan H.
Roots, treasurer and H. Foote, secretary. Isaac S. Taylor was the
architect. It had its grand opening May 1, 1886. In 1902 when the Frisco
Railroad took it over it was remodeled with Guy Crandall Morimer as
architect.

Some of the board of directors of the Crescent Hotel Company were
stockholders in the Frisco Railroad and it was probably through their
influence that the Frisco leased the hotel in 1902 for a period of five
years. One of the conditions of the lease was that at least $50,000 be
spent on furnishings and improvements. This was done and the hotel was
widely advertised by the railroad company.

During the first twenty-two years of its existence, the Crescent was
operated as a year-round hotel but in 1908 the Crescent College for
girls was organized and the building became a school from September
until June and continued as a hotel during the three summer months. A.
S. Maddox was the first president of the college. R. R. (Dick) Thompson
became president in 1910 and continued in this capacity until the middle
twenties. The institution was then taken over by Claude Fuller, Albert
Ingalls and W. T. Patterson and operated for a few years. A. Q. Burns
became president of the college in 1929 and served for three or four
years. The college was closed permanently in 1933.

In 1936 the property was sold to Norman Baker who turned it into a
hospital. This institution lasted about two years and when it folded up
the building remained vacant until 1946. In the spring of that year it
was bought by four Chicago men—John R. Constantine, Herbert E. Shutter,
Herbert A. Byfield, and Dwight Nichols. It was reopened July 4, 1946
with Mr. Nichols as manager.

The Crescent Hotel now specializes in “package tours” from Chicago and
other cities and remains open from April 1 to December 1. It is again
associated with the Frisco Railroad for most of the guests come to
Monett, Missouri by train and are transported by Crescent buses through
the scenic hills to Eureka Springs. The regular “package” tour is of six
days duration and provides room, meals and entertainment.

We wonder why this hotel was named “The Crescent.” The word, crescent,
refers to the shape of the increasing or new moon when it is receding
from the sun. It is often used as an emblem of progress and success. The
symbol was popular in heraldry and was used by at least three orders of
knighthood, first instituted by Charles I of Naples and Sicily in 1268;
the second instituted at Angiers by Rene of Anjou in 1464; the third
instituted by Selim, Sultan of Turkey in 1801 in honor of Lord Nelson.
It is both a religious and military emblem of the Ottoman Turks. In
architecture, the word refers to a range of buildings in the form of a
crescent or half-moon. Some of the stone work of the Crescent Hotel is
in the form of a crescent and this may have given the building its name.
Personally, we like to think of it as an emblem of progress and success
in the hotel world.




                                  XXX
                             HOTEL HISTORY


Eureka Springs entertains 150,000 or more tourists annually and it has
need of numerous hotels, motels and courts to provide adequate housing
for these guests. During its seventy-five years as a resort, it has had
more than 100 establishments of this class. One of the first of these
hotels was the St. Charles on North Main Street, opened by Powell
Clayton in 1882. It was first called the Clayton House. The Grand
Central was opened in 1883. Two years (1884-1886) were spent in building
the Crescent which opened May 1, 1886. The Palace opened in May, 1901.
The Wadsworth was dedicated February 14, 1902. The name was changed to
The Allred a few years later. In 1949 it was purchased by Cecil Maberry
and renamed The Springs. In August, 1954, it was purchased by Gale
Reeves and many improvements made. The Basin Park Hotel was opened for
guests May 5, 1905 and had its “grand opening” July 1. The site was
formerly occupied by the Perry House, which was destroyed in the big
fire of 1888. The building that housed the Lansing Hotel (Carthage
House) still stand on Center Street. The Landaker is another of the
older hotels now used as an apartment house. The Southern, just south of
the Basin Circle, was destroyed by fire in 1935. The Thach, popular with
Texans, was destroyed by fire in 1932. The Belden at Lion Spring was
once a popular hotel.

Other hotels and boarding houses that once served the public, are: The
Antlers, Barretts, Baker House, Crim House, Calef, Calohan, Corrs,
Callender, Chautauqua, Crescent Cottage, Dieu, Davey, Drains, Dell Mont,
Glenwood, Gable, Guffey’s, The Gables, Holman, Hancock, Harvey House,
Hodges, Illinois, Josephine, Kimberlings, Lindell, Lawrence, Main,
Mountain Home, Maplewood, Magnetic, New National, New St. Louis,
Phoenix, Piedmont, Pickards, Pence, Reynolds, Sweet Spring, Sweet
Springs Home, Sweet Spring Flats, Silver, Swankey, Sawyer, St. Louis,
Tulsa, Tweely’s, Valley, Vestal Cottage, White Elephant, Wards, Williams
Cottage, Washington and Waverly.

Eureka Springs visitors now have choice of hotels (European or American
plan) or motels and motor courts. A big percentage of our tourists
patronize the motels and courts of which there are twenty or more in
Eureka Springs and vicinity. They range all the way from comfortable
modern cabins to deluxe motels and resorts which are the last word in
comfort and convenience. Most of them are conveniently located on U. S.
Highway 62.




                                  XXXI
                           “BACKWOODS BARON”


In my opinion, the man most closely associated with Eureka Springs in a
business and political way during the past half century is the Hon.
Claude A. Fuller. He has always had the interests of his hometown at
heart and his leadership is outstanding. Born in Springhill, Illinois
January 20, 1876, he came westward with his parents when a young lad
and, at the age of fifteen, settled at Eureka Springs. His first job was
with pick and shovel at Sanitarium Lake, now Lake Lucerne. When the
street car line was constructed from the Auditorium (now Harmon
Playgrounds) to the Basin Spring, he was employed as waterboy. He
carried all the spikes that coupled the rails. Upon completion of the
line he became mule driver, then conductor. Later he was the attorney
for the road.

Claude attended the Eureka Springs High School and graduated in the
class of 1896. He decided upon law as his profession, attended the Kent
Law School at Chicago and was admitted to the bar in 1898. On December
25, 1899, he married Miss May Obenshain, his hometown sweetheart. The
Fullers have had three children; a son who died in infancy, and two
daughters, Ruth Marie (Mrs. John S. Cross), and Dorothy M. (Mrs. Pat
Mathews). They have five grandchildren.

Mr. Fuller began his official career as city clerk at Eureka Springs in
1898 and served four years. He was then elected state representative for
Carroll County and served from 1902 to 1906. In 1907, he was elected
mayor of Eureka Springs by a handsome majority. He served in this
capacity until 1910, and again from 1920 until 1928. During his terms of
office many improvements were made in the city such as the building of
the municipal auditorium, the extending of the dam at the city
reservoir, the erection of filter basins, and the extension of water and
sewer mains. He served four years as prosecuting attorney (1910-1914).

During all these years, Mr. Fuller was ambitious to represent his
district in Congress. He tried in 1914, but was defeated by a small
margin. In 1928 he was successful and served ten years as Congressman.
He was a member of the Ways and Means Committee which is one of the
powerful committees of the House. Through his efforts Lake Leatherwood
was built as a government project. In 1938 he returned to his private
practice of law at Eureka Springs and has kept his office open ever
since. He is one of the best known attorneys in Arkansas.

Claude A. Fuller’s rise in the business world was rapid. He was a good
trader and knew how to invest his money. He and his brother purchased
the Eureka Springs Railway which they held for one year and sold for a
profit of $10,000. In 1925, he purchased the Crescent Hotel which he
held for four years and sold. In 1926 he became owner of the Basin Park
Hotel but sold it when he went to Congress. In the banking business, he
became president of the Bank of Eureka Springs, a position he still
holds. His pet project is his ranch on White River where he raises
thorobred white face cattle. Mr. Fuller is a member of the Baptist
Church, belongs to the Elks Fraternity, and is an active Rotarian.

In 1951, Frank L. Beals published a biography of Claude Fuller entitled,
“Backwood’s Baron.” Mr. Beals said: “In Claude’s realistic approach to
life, the law, and politics go hand in hand. He never aspired to purify
any of the three, he just took them as he found them and bent them to
his own purposes. He never swam against the current, he floated with it,
taking advantage of the flotsam and jetsam that were going his way to
make secure his own passage.”

Mr. Fuller has received many honors during his long, eventful life. One
that he is especially proud of is the Distinguished Citizenship Award
presented to him by the Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce on March 31,
1951, in recognition of his efficient service as a director of the
organization. The award is signed by the Awards Committee: Harry Wilk,
Dwight O. Nichols, Joe A. Morris, Paul Smart, Cecil Maberry and Richard
Thompson.

At the end of the book, “Backwood’s Baron,” Mr. Beals says: “Oliver
Wendell Holmes (Jr.) in a radio address on his ninetieth birthday, might
well have been speaking of Claude Albert Fuller when he said:

‘The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There
is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is
time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to one’s self, ‘Thy
work is done.’ But just as one says that, the answer comes: ‘The race is
over, but the work never is done while the power to work remains.’ The
canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming to rest.
It cannot be, while you still live. For to live is to function. That is
all there is in living.’”




                                 XXXII
                       WRITERS AND ARTISTS’ MECCA


Eureka Springs probably has more writers than any other town of its size
in the nation. Since World War II an astonishing number of books have
been authored by residents of the “Stair-Step-Town.” Some of these
writers have been producing novels, short stories, feature articles and
poetry for a quarter of a century; others have appeared only recently on
the literary horizon.

Vance Randolph, Ozark folklorist, is the author of fifteen major books
and hundreds of pamphlets and feature articles. His books on the Ozarks,
as listed in “Who’s Who in America,” are “The Ozarks: An American
Survival of Primitive Society” (1931); “Ozark Mountain Folks” (1932);
“From an Ozark Holler” (1933); “Ozark Outdoors” (1934); “The Camp on
Wildcat Creek” (1934); “The Camp-Meeting Murders” (with Nancy Clemons)
(1936); “An Ozark Anthology” (1940); “Ozark Folksongs” in four volumes
(1946-50); “Ozark Superstitions” (1947); “We Always Lie to Strangers”
(1951); “Who Blowed Up the Churchhouse” (1952); “Down in the Holler: A
Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech” (1935).

Glenn Ward Dresbach is recognized as one of America’s leading poets. He
has produced a number of books and contributed to leading national
magazines for a number of years. His latest book: “Collected Poems,
1912-1948,” was published in 1950. Beverley Githens (Mrs. Glenn Ward
Dresbach) writes both poetry and prose. Her “No Splendor Perishes” won
the Dierkes Poetry award in 1946.

Major Frank L. Beals is author of “The Ancient Name” (1937); “Look Away
Dixieland,” a novel (1937); The American Adventure Series of books
(1941-45); “Boswell in Chicago” (1946); The Famous Story Series
(1946-50); “Backwoods Baron” (1951).

Marge Lyon has produced four books on Arkansas and the Ozarks. They are:
“Take to the Hills” (1942); “And the Green Grass Grows All Round”
(1943); “Fresh from the Hills” (1945); “Hurrah for Arkansas” (1947). Her
“And So to Bedlam” (1944) is set in Chicago. Mrs. Lyon has a column
entitled “Marge of Sunrise Mountain Farm” in the Sunday Chicago Tribune.

Everett and Olga Webber, a husband and wife writer-team, have authored
two novels: “Rampart Street” (1948) and “Bound Girl” (1949). “Rampart
Street” sold more than a million copies in all editions. The Webbers
contribute short stories to a number of magazines, including the
Saturday Evening Post. We expect a new book from them soon.

Frances Donovan, retired school teacher from Chicago, writes on
sociological subjects. Her books are: “The Sales Lady” (1929); “The
School Ma’am” (1938) and “The Woman Who Waits.” At the present time she
is working on a sociological study of Eureka Springs.

Cora Pinkley Call is author of “Pioneer Tales of Eureka Springs” (1930);
“Shifting Sands” (1943); “The Dream Garden” (1944); “From My Ozark
Cupboard” (1950); “Eureka Springs: Stair-Step Town” (1952). Mrs. Call is
president of the Ozark Artists and Writers Guild.

Constance Wagner is a short story writer and novelist. Her latest novel,
“Sycamore,” came from the press in 1950. Dr. Bonnie Lela Crump writes
feature stories and has published a number of booklets. Morris Hull
specializes on confession and human interest stories and contributes to
the leading magazines in this field. He is the author of the novel,
“Cannery Annie,” published several years ago. Bill Dierkes of the
Dierkes Press is author of three books of poetry: “Gold Nuggets,”
(1928); “The Man from Vermont,” (1935); and “Emerge with the Swallow,”
(1944).

I began writing about the Ozarks in 1925 and have written and published
about one million words on the history and folklore of the region. My
books, to date, are: “An Ozarker Looks at Life,” (1927); “Dream Dust,”
(1924); “Roadside Chats,” (1939); and “Ozark Country” of the American
Folkways Series (1941). Most of my writing has been for magazines and
newspapers and for my own Ozarkian publications: “Ozark Life,”
(1925-30), “Arcadian Magazine,” (1931-32), “Arcadian Life Magazine,”
(1933-42), and “Rayburn’s Ozark Guide,” (1942 to the present time).

In addition to the authors who have produced books, there are a score or
more of writers in Eureka Springs who write for magazines and
newspapers. Some of them are professionals, others write for their own
pleasure. If all the stories, articles and poems produced in this town
were assembled into books and placed alongside the volumes already
published, it would make a sizeable library. Not many communities can
boast of such a literary output.

Eureka Springs has been a mecca for artists for many years. Several
years ago, Louis and Elsie Freund bought Hatchet Hall, the old home of
Carry A. Nation, and made it into an art center. For several years they
conducted a summer art school. Other Eureka Springs artists, whose works
I have observed are: William Farnum, Fred Swedlun, Glenn Swedlun, Lester
M. Exley, W. F. Von Telligan, Mr. and Mrs. L. V. Orsinger, Verne
Stanley, Virginia Tyler, Art Foster and Bonnie Lela Crump. I am sure
there are others who deserve mention but I have not seen their work.
Most of the above are professional artists who work with oils and water
colors. Some do pen sketches. Thousands of paintings and drawings have
been made of the scenery and quaintness of Eureka Springs during its
seventy-five years of history. If all of these creative products could
be placed on exhibition at one time it would make a row of pictures
miles long.




                                 XXXIII
                          THE OLD AND THE NEW


Time marches on and not many of the men and women of the pioneer
eighties are with us today. Among those who are native born or who came
in their youth when the town was a booming spa are: Mrs. Annie House,
Jim Bradley, Mrs. Fred West, Mrs. Wilma Jarrett Ellis, Mrs. C. A.
Fuller, Mrs. Louis Haneke, Mrs. May S. Miller, Mrs. Chrystal Lyle,
Wallace McQuerry, Otis McGinnis, Joe Hoskins, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Porch,
Sam Riley, E. A. Jordan, Tom Walker, Walter Burris, T. L. Hawley, Mrs.
Claude Pike, Charlie Perry, Mrs. Maud Woodruff, Frank Pickard, Mrs.
Alice Campbell, Mrs. Lida Mae Roberts, and perhaps a few others. Most of
these older residents now live in retirement, but a few are active in
business.

Early in the twentieth century we find F. O. Butt on the stage of action
as a practicing attorney. Mr. Butt served his district as senator in the
state legislature, was mayor of Eureka Springs for two terms and
newspaper editor for a number of years. He is still on the job as a
practicing attorney.

R. R. (Dick) Thompson came to Eureka Springs in 1908 as a teacher in
Crescent College and later became president of the institution. In the
middle twenties he established his Lake Lucerne Resort and the Ozarka
Water Company and now devotes his time to the management of these two
concerns.

Claude A. Fuller began practicing law in 1898 and has been closely
connected with the business interests of the town since that date. Mrs.
Annie House, “the oldest newspaper woman in Arkansas,” came to Eureka
Springs as a child in 1880. Sam A. Leath, our guide and historian, has
had an active part in civic affairs since 1898. He has been connected
with the Chamber of Commerce for many years. Jim Bradley, Joe Porch and
Tom Walker are all old-timers who continue in business.

It would take many pages to list all the men and women, now dead or
moved away, who contributed to the building of the town. I name only a
few whom I have special reason to remember—Charley Stehm, Major J. W.
True, Claude Pike, Harvey Fuller, Floyd Walker, W. N. Duncan, Dr. C. E.
Davis, B. J. Rosewater, Dr. C. F. Ellis, Prof. C. S. Barnett, W. O.
Perkins, Col. C. D. James, Mrs. Adelaide Wayland, Albert G. Ingalls, A.
Q. Burns, William Kappen, H. T. Pendergrass, Dr. J. S. Porch, A. L.
Hess, Major W. E. Penn, Earl Newport, Louie Webber, Louie Haneke, Eaton
Cole, Dr. J. F. John, Dr. J. H. Webb, Dr. Charles Bergstresser, Dr.
Pearl Tateman, Arch Kimberling, George Hardy, Harry Wickham, Lucien
Gray, B. L. Rosser, Miss Nellie Mills, Mrs. Ida Wilhelm, A. J. Fortner,
Mr. and Mrs. George Hurt, Dr. J. H. Huntington, Herman and Hugo Seidel,
L. E. Lines, John Jennings, Dr. R. G. Floyd and M. M. Chandler. This
list is very inadequate but, as stated above, it includes only those
that I have special reason to remember. In the books written on Eureka
Springs by Nellie Mills and Cora Pinkley Call will be found more
complete lists of the old residents.

It took World War II to start an influx of homeseekers toward the
Ozarks. This invasion came as an aftermath of the war and Eureka Springs
received its share. At the opportune time, Marge Lyon and her genial
husband, Robert (“the jedge”), moved into the community and Marge began
telling the story of Eureka Springs and the Ozarks to a vast audience of
readers with her column, “Marge of Sunrise Mountain Farm” in the Chicago
Tribune. Marge was influential in starting thousands of people in quest
of the fuller life of the countryside. Retirement people flocked to
Eureka Springs to buy homes; others came to go into business. By 1950,
Eureka Springs had been given the nickname, “Little Chicago,” because of
the large number of people from that area.

The town of Eureka Springs owes Marge Lyon a vast debt of gratitude. Her
lucid lines have lured thousands of visitors to the hills, many of whom
came to stay and are now happily located far from the city’s noise and
confusion. They have helped balance the town’s economy and have added to
the culture and social life of the community.

In 1946, I located Ozark Guide magazine at Eureka Springs and have given
the community a national journalistic voice that has an influence in
bringing both tourists and homeseekers. Eureka Springs is the only Ozark
town having an Ozark magazine with national spread. It lays the magic
carpet for exit from the confusion of the city to the land of Ozark
enchantment.

The assimilation of the newcomers into the social and economic life of
the town has been successful. The ratio of newcomers to natives is now
about fifty-fifty. It is almost impossible to tell an old-timer from a
newcomer. The melting pot is doing its work.

                            * * * * * * * *

Eureka Springs is one of the two cities in Arkansas having a commission
form of government. The other city is Fort Smith. In 1918, this system
was adopted for our town. It provides for a commission of three persons,
one of whom is selected to act as mayor. The present commission is
composed of Mayor A. J. Russell, Ray Freeman and Col. C. C. King. Mr.
Russell has been mayor for fourteen years.

Eureka Springs is a city of churches with the following denominations:
Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Christian, Assembly of God Nazarene,
Episcopalian, Christian Science and Catholic. The Presbyterians have the
oldest church building. It was built in 1886 following the completion of
the Crescent Hotel. The same stone masons built both buildings.

The school system of the city is one of the best in the South. A modern
building was erected in 1951 and it is the last word in convenience.
Both the elementary and high schools have “A” ratings.

Eureka Springs has a full quota of civic, fraternal and patriotic
organizations such as: the Masons, Elks, I.O.O.F., Rotarians, Lions,
American Legion, Chamber of Commerce, Tourist Council, Woman’s Club,
Music Club, Ozark Artists and Writers Guild, home demonstration clubs,
and others. The American Legion hut is one of the finest in the state.
The social life of the community is enriched with many cultural and
recreational activities throughout the year.

We have a modern post office building with Cecil Walker as postmaster.
Carroll County is one of the nine or ten counties of Arkansas that have
two county seats. It has courthouses both at Berryville and Eureka
Springs. Our courthouse is secondary but represents the western district
of the county and has offices for both county and city officials, a
court room, and a jail which is vacant most of the time.

Modern comforts and conveniences make Eureka Springs a pleasant place to
live. Electricity is supplied at reasonable rates by the Southwestern
Gas and Electric Company. Natural gas was installed in the late forties
by the Arkansas Western Gas Company. This fuel is both convenient and
inexpensive and a great asset to the town. The municipal water supply is
adequate for any emergency. The city lake is fed by sixteen springs, and
a deep well, dug recently. Bonds were voted a year or two ago for the
rebuilding of the city’s sewer system and the disposal plant. Most of
the streets of the city are paved. Telephones are available for both
business and home use.

For recreation, we have the Harmon Playgrounds, equipped with playground
equipment and stage, and lights for night use. It has a playground
supervisor during the summer months. The city auditorium seats about
1200 people and is the town’s amusement center for shows, concerts and
festivals. The Basin Circle Park is equipped with seats and has a stage
for concerts and other entertainments. The New Basin Theatre, owned and
operated by Cecil Maberry, is air conditioned and has a change of
program three times a week. The American Legion sponsors square dancing
at the city auditorium on Saturday nights. Throughout the week there is
dancing at the Basin Park and Crescent hotels. Other recreation features
of the community are: swimming at Lake Lucerne, Lake Leatherwood, the
Camp Joy pool, and Kings and White rivers; fishing and boating at Lake
Leatherwood and the rivers; White River float trips; golf at Lake
Lucerne; horseback riding, scenic motor drives, and hiking. Places of
interest to tourists include: Onyx Cave, Inspiration Point, The Castle,
Blue Spring, Quigley’s Castle, Pivot Rock and Natural Bridge, the Ozark
Museum, Hatchet Hall, Birdhaven, the Bracken Doll Museum, the Old Rock
House, the springs (63 of them), the Basin Circle Park, Harmon
Playgrounds, St. Elizabeth Church, the views from East Mountain and the
top of the Crescent Hotel, the Narrows, Beaver, White River, Kings
River, Hog Scald, Penitentiary Hollow and Revilo Ranch.

Eureka Springs has two bath houses and a modern hospital. It has two
printing plants, one of which publishes the Eureka Springs Times-Echo
and prints Rayburn’s Ozark Guide. The volunteer fire department has a
new truck and modern equipment, and the city police force is adequate
for local needs. The town has modern motels and cafes, most of which
remain open through the year. Outstanding antique and gift shops are
located here. Practically all lines of mercantile business and services
are represented at Eureka Springs. We have one bank, four lawyers, three
doctors, one optometrist and one undertaker.

In 1948, Eureka Springs had its first Ozark Folk Festival, directed by
Robert Serviss. Mr. Serviss got the backing of a number of local
business men and formed the Folk Festival Association. Serviss directed
the festival again in 1949. During the next two years, the late Harry
Wilk, who was president of the Chamber of Commerce, and Ned Bailey,
secretary of the organization, put on the festival and extended it from
three days to a full week. In 1952, the Festival Association was
incorporated and Grover Roark elected president. I directed the
festivals in 1952, 1953 and 1954. In 1954 people from twenty-seven
states attended this event. The festival, held in mid-October, has
developed into an immense jamboree and attracts thousands of visitors.




                                 XXXIV
                          UNUSUAL ENTERPRISES


One of the treasured thoroughfares of Old Eureka Springs was the foot
bridge which spanned the canyon at the rear of the stone building, now
the Sweet Spring Apartments. The south terminus of this unusual
structure was at the rear of Jim Black’s shoe shop. It was a short cut
to the business section on Spring Street in the vicinity of Sweet,
Harding and Crescent Springs. The original Sweet Spring was in the
hollow at the rear of the post office to the left of the bridge. This
spring was tapped higher up on the bluff when Spring Street was laid
out.

Another unusual structure was the “Bridge Studio” built by Sam A. Leath
and Steele Kennedy in 1931. The site of this covered bridge, built for
artists and writers, was at the tourist court owned by these two
men—Camp Leath, now Mount Air. It was built across a ravine at the rear
of the court and was a little more than 100 feet in length. Leath and
Kennedy were the sole builders of this structure and their methods stand
unique in the annals of engineering. The two ends of the bridge were
built alternately, section by section, coming together in the center.
After building one end, the opposite position was accurately located by
Kennedy with a small bore rifle. A board was held by Leath at the north
end of the bridge, indicating where the top deck at that point would be.
Kennedy placed the shot at the exact point desired. The trueness of the
shot was later proved with a level when the two approaches were closed
with the central span.

The “Bridge Studio” was built for the artists and writers of the Ozarks.
The lower deck had five compartments fitted with chairs, tables and
lights. The doors were never locked.

A large crowd attended the dedication of the “Bridge Studio” on May 3,
1931. Dr. Charles H. Brough, World War I governor of Arkansas, was the
speaker. The story of the unique bridge and its idealistic purpose was
told in newspapers throughout the land. But it was a dream that soon
faded. When Sam Leath sold his court in the middle thirties and became
manager of the Chamber of Commerce at Harrison, the “Bridge Studio” was
torn down.

A unique business enterprise in the early days at Eureka Springs was the
C. H. McLaughlin grocery, said to be one of the cleanest, best equipped
and best arranged groceries in the United States. Mr. McLaughlin built
“a better mouse trap” and the world made a beaten path to his door.

Another interesting project, located four miles north of Eureka Springs,
was Elk Ranch, operated by Gen. Geo. W. Russ and the Riverside Land and
Livestock Company from 1902 to about 1917. This ranch contained about
1,500 acres and the principal enterprise was the breeding of blooded
horses. It received its name from the herd of elk that had the run of
the ranch. This herd numbered about 130 at one time.

A recent project, built by Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Quigley on their farm four
miles south of Eureka Springs is “Quigley’s Castle.” It has been called
the Ozarks’ strangest dwelling. It is a large stone house with the outer
walls covered with great flat stones set on edge and held together with
cement. These walls are covered with small, colorful picture rocks and
fossils which Mrs. Quigley picked up over a period of years. She
engineered the building of the house and placed the rocks in position.
These walls are a geological treasury.

The inside of Quigley’s Castle is a botanical garden and family home.
The light enters through eight large picture windows. The rooms are
built independent of the outer walls with the first floor three feet
from the ground and a four foot space between wall and room. In this
space grow many varieties of both tropical and Ozark plants such as
rubber trees, rose bushes, oleanders and a banana tree. Some of these
plants grow to a height of twenty-five feet, extending almost to the
roof. The second floor has a waist-high railing built around the rooms
to prevent stepping off into space. Small bridges permit passage across
the chasm at points of entry.

The iron dog which once stood on the pedestal in the Basin Circle where
the soldier monument now stands is a missing link in the Eureka Springs
story. Photographs made from about 1907 to the early thirties show this
dog. According to the old timers, this iron monster, which weighed 400
pounds, once belonged to a family named Squires and was an ornament in
the yard of their home on the hillside at the rear of the Basin Park
Hotel. One Halloween night about 1907 the boys moved the iron dog to the
park and set it on the pedestal. In bringing it down the path back of
the hotel they broke off its tail. The city authorities let it remain on
the pedestal until in the thirties, when it disappeared and the soldier
monument took its place. No one seems to know what became of the dog,
but it is reported that it may be seen in the yard of a home at
Springfield, Missouri.

Old-timers will remember “Old Chapultepec,” the cannon which was
captured by United States troops during the battle of Chapultepec in the
Mexican War and brought to Eureka Springs by General Powell Clayton when
he located here in the early 1880’s. In 1933 J. Rosewater had an article
on this old relic in an Arkansas newspaper. Quote:

“In the yard of the Missouri and North Arkansas railway at Eureka
Springs, the wood in its once sturdy wheels so decayed they provide a
very wobbly support, stands a muzzle-loading cannon, so old that few in
this community know its history, or how it came to be in the depot yard.

“Old-timers said the cannon was called ‘Old Chapultepec,’ and that it
was captured by United States troops during the war with Mexico at the
battle of Chapultepec in 1847. It saw service during the Civil war and
was left at Little Rock, where Gen. Powell Clayton, Reconstruction
governor of Arkansas after the Civil war, obtained it and brought it to
Eureka Springs in 1882, while making his home here after he ceased to be
governor.

“For years it was displayed at public places in the city and at one time
stood on the lawn of the Crescent Hotel. General Clayton gave it to the
city and it was moved to the depot, Clayton being interested in the
Missouri and North Arkansas railway, which was known then as the St.
Louis and Eureka Springs railway and terminated at Eureka Springs.
Several years later a group known as the Civic Improvement Association
built an inclosure and a pedestal for the cannon.

“The cannon stands on a carriage about 3½ feet high. The barrel is
almost five feet long and about six inches in diameter at the muzzle.
Near the breech is a small touch hole where powder was used to fire the
piece. The cannon can be moved up or down on the carriage, but to aim it
right or left it is necessary to turn the carriage. Apparently the gun
was fired in the general direction of the enemy during battle.

“Eureka Springs citizens used to pull it to a mountain top and fire it
on July 4 or to celebrate some political victory, but this custom has
long since ceased.”

“Old Chapultepec” was sacrificed for scrap metal during World War II and
at the close of the war the government sent the city a captured German
howitzer which was placed in the Basin Circle where it now stands.

One of the highly prized memorials of our “Stair-Step-Town” is the
Kerens Chapel and the St. Elizabeth’s Church which is widely known as
“the church entered through the steeple.” This is misleading as the
entry is through a detached belfry and then down a stone corridor and
steps to the chapel and church. The chapel was built as a family
memorial in 1907 by Richard Kerens, a St. Louis capitalist, who was one
of the owners of the Crescent Hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Kerens and their
children, Vincent, Richard, Jr., and Gladys, spent three or four months
of each year at the Crescent. Mr. Kerens’ mother sometimes accompanied
them.

One day Mr. Kerens and his mother were on the promenade at the south end
of the hotel talking. As they talked a boy approached Mr. Kerens with a
telegram. It was a notification from Washington that he had been
appointed ambassador to Austria. He immediately packed his bags and took
a carriage to the railroad station. As the vehicle crossed the spot
where the chapel now stands he waved good-by to his mother who was
standing on the promenade. That was the last time he saw her for she
died while he was abroad.

When Mr. Kerens returned to this country he began making plans for a
memorial to his parents. He wanted it located on the exact spot where he
last saw his mother. He secured the land and had the hillside properly
terraced with a thirty foot reinforcement wall. This wall was set eight
feet in the ground and was five feet thick at the base in order to give
it a solid foundation. The foundation of the chapel went down eighteen
feet to make it secure. The structure was dedicated in 1907. Two years
later, Mr. Kerens financed the building of St. Elizabeth’s Church
adjacent to the chapel, combining the two buildings. It is one of the
most beautiful little churches in America and is visited by thousands of
tourists each year.

Perhaps the most unusual enterprise in Eureka Springs is the lay-out of
the town itself. Was it built haphazardly or with definite plan? Powell
Clayton and other city fathers probably knew, but they long ago passed
to their rewards. They were inspired men and had great faith in the
future of the fabulous City of Springs.

    [Illustration: St. Elizabeth’s Church]




                                  XXXV
                              THE OUTLOOK


We have had a long look at the past and a peep at the present. What of
the future? In my opinion, the outlook for Eureka Springs is good. We
have a problem, but its solution is not impossible if we have faith in
the town as the founders had. The big problem of Eureka Springs is to
operate successfully on a strictly tourist income and meet the
competition of other Ozark resorts. We hear complaints that the season
is too short and the tourist patronage too light. The town was
originally intended as a health resort, based upon the curative
properties of the water from the springs. This slant is now secondary to
recreation. Our chief difficulty is in providing sufficient attractions
to hold tourists more than a day or two. This problem must be solved or
we will gradually fade out of the picture.

The building of two dams on White River, at Table Rock and at Beaver,
will have a great influence on Eureka Springs’ economy. These dams will
provide large lakes for recreational purposes. They will be within a few
minutes drive of our city. We now have approximately 150,000 visitors a
year but the average stay is only a day or two. When the lakes are
completed, we should have 500,000 or more tourists a year and they
should remain an average of five or six days. These figures are based on
what has happened at the Lake of the Ozarks and at Norfork and Bull
Shoals. Of course, it will require extensive advertising to meet
competition. Our facilities for housing and entertaining tourists will
have to be enlarged. The population of Eureka Springs should gradually
increase during the next few years. With the most scenic location in the
Ozarks, with flowing springs such as other towns do not have, with
nearness to two lakes with the best of fishing and water sports, it is
not extravagant to visualize the population of Eureka Springs as doubled
within a few years.

Appropriations have been made to start Table Rock Dam and the contract
has been let. Work started on November 2nd and will continue four or
five years. It is estimated that the building of this structure will
boost the region’s economy at least $50,000,000. Of course, Branson,
Missouri will profit most for the dam will be located eight miles above
the town, but other communities of the region will benefit also. The
headwaters of the reservoir will reach within a few miles of Eureka
Springs.

Beaver Dam has been approved by both houses of Congress, but
appropriations have not yet been made. If these appropriations are made
next year, work should get started by 1956 and the structure completed
about the same time as Table Rock. The Beaver Dam will be located about
ten miles southwest of Eureka Springs and it will be a big factor in
promoting the growth of the community.

For a balanced economy a resort town needs a few small industries. With
the coming of the lakes it should be possible to locate a few factories
here that will provide substantial pay rolls. These industries should
harmonize with the recreational background. Homecrafts should be
encouraged.

The unofficial reports of the population of Eureka Springs in the 1880’s
and 1890’s range from 5,000 to 15,000. Old-timers say that the
population peak was reached about the year 1888. The official census
records at the Bureau of Census in Washington do not agree with these
unofficial reports, being considerably less. It is possible that the
unofficial count took in people who lived outside the city limits, or
who were not permanent residents. At any rate, here is the report from
the Bureau of Census:

1880, 3,984—1890, 3,706—1900, 3,572—1910, 3,228—1920, 2,429—1930,
2,276—1940, 1,770—1950, 1,958.

These figures show that the town had its largest official population in
1880, its first year, and gradually decreased, reaching an all-time low
at the end of the depression in 1940. Then an increase began. The city
limits have been extended and a conservative estimate of the population
at this present time is around 2,100. This increase should go to 3,000
by 1960, and to 4,000 by 1970. When the town reaches its Centennial in
1979, it should have a sound economic basis and a population about
double what it is now.




                                FOONOTES


[1]The Eureka Springs (Eureka Springs, Arkansas, May 15, 1884) Page 5.

[2]Ibid., Page 8.

[3]The Eureka Springs by W. W. Johnson, M. D., Eureka Springs, Arkansas,
    1884, pages 6-8.

[4]The Healing Fountain: Eureka Springs, Ark.: A Complete History.
    Eureka Springs, Arkansas, 1881, page 4.

[5]Volume 1, pages 163-167.

[6]The Healing Fountain: Eureka Springs, Ark. 1881. Pages 3 and 4.

[7](Eureka Springs, Arkansas) 1952 pp. 18-20.

[8]We acknowledge credit to Mr. Sam A. Leath for the historical data of
    this narrative.

[9]The Eureka Springs, (1881), pp. 10-11.

[10]The material for this story was supplied by the late Louis Hanecke,
    Sam A. Leath and Steele Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy and others wrote
    feature articles about it which appeared in Sunday newspapers a few
    years ago.

[11]The Healing Fountain, Eureka Springs (1881), p. 12.

[12]The Healing Fountain: Eureka Springs, Ark. pp. 22-24.

[13]Pp. V-VIII.

[14]Rayburn’s Ozark Guide, No. 33, Summer, 1952, p. 31.

[15]The Healing Fountain: Eureka Springs. p. 7.

[16]Life and Adventures of John Gaskins. p. XII.

[17]Rayburn’s Ozark Guide, No. 15, Spring, 1947, pp. 7-10.

[18]See my Ozark Country. pp. 283-286.

    (Note. The tavern operated by the uncle of the James boys was
    located at the spot now occupied by the Phillips 66 station and
    grocery on U. S. Highway 62.)

[19](New York), 1952. pp. 42-43.

[20]Compare with the chapter on Hog Scald in my Ozark Country, pp.
    244-246.




                          Transcriber’s Notes


—Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
  is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.







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