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.