The Eureka Springs Story

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.”

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:

“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—

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:

“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:

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.

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!’”

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.