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.