water that is commercialized. It is shipped in glass or enamel-lined
railway cars to many cities in the mid-west. Ozarka is a liquid treasure
from nature's vast laboratory. Other springs in the vicinity are Little
Ozarka, Minnehaha with its Indian legend, and the Bancroft Springs.
Magnetic Spring is one of the most popular springs in the city. The
water was once thought to be radio-active and old-timers claimed it
would magnetize a knife blade. It is a popular place for picnickers and
the city has provided a shelter-house with tables, barbecue pit and
other facilities. Magnetic Hollow has other springs such as Mystic,
which flows from a picturesque cliff, and Bell Spring which makes a
musical sound like the tinkling of a bell. An iron and sulphur spring
was once located near the railway depot, but is not now flowing.
To the west and south of the city, within walking distance, are the
famous Oil and Johnson springs and sixteen springs that feed the city
lake that supplies the municipal water system. A bathhouse once stood
under the cliff between Johnson and Oil Springs. The oil spring is
peculiar in that the waters have an oleaginous feeling when rubbed
between the hands. It was once considered beneficial in diseases of the
scalp.
Lion Spring flows from the cliff near the back door of the home of Mr.
and Mrs. Everett Wheeler, publishers of the Eureka Springs Times-Echo.
For many years the Lion Spring Hotel, operated by "Mother" Belden, was
located on this site. A stone Lion's head is set up as a dispensary and
the water flows through its mouth. This spring once supplied a stream of
water for Dr. Alvah Jackson's primitive bathhouse in the rock shelter
fifty feet below. A wash-tub was secured from a sugar camp on Keel's
Creek and this, with half-a-dozen canteens, constituted the outfit of
the first water-cure establishment in this part of the state.
Calip Spring is on South Main Street near the Elk's Club. It supplied
the community watering trough in the early days of the town. Fishermen
now use this trough as a depository for minnows. Gadd Spring is farther
north on Main Street and is housed in a rock edifice made from crystal
and other odd-shaped rocks.
In regard to the springs at Eureka, L. J. Kolklosh wrote in 1881:
"No other springs in the world have had so many cures and such a
reputation in so short a time as the Eureka Springs of Arkansas. History
does not record an equal.... Eureka had made a name that has been heard
throughout Christendom."
XVII
THE LAY OF THE TOWN
A crazy quilt is made up of pieces arranged without pattern or order.
Eureka Springs is like that. It is an architectural labyrinth unique
among cities. The recently built annex of the Penn Memorial Baptist
Church has a home for the minister on the third floor. You may enter at
the street-level door on Mountain Street, walk through the rooms--a
distance of about forty feet--and look down upon Owen Street, thirty
feet below. This sounds like an architectural fairy tale, but it is
true. Houses are built like that in this Switzerland of America. In many
homes the street entrance is on the second or third floor, or the house
may be reached by a stairway clinging to the mountain side. One business
house is surrounded by streets like a moat 'round a castle and it has
four street addresses each on a different level. In the early days when
the town was thronged with health seekers who wanted homes near the
springs, terraces were built and hemmed-in with massive stone walls.
Houses were constructed on these terraces with stairways leading from
one level to the other. Frequently a natural cave opens at the backdoor.
The yards and gardens have the appearance of "The Hanging Gardens of
Babylon," built by Nebuchadnezzar for his hill-loving queen. Some
residents may step from their gardens to the roof of the house while
others must climb stairways to their patch of vegetables.
The first lawsuit in Eureka Springs, according to the old-timers, was
caused by a woman who lived in one of these terraced homesites. She
carelessly threw dishwater out of the backdoor and down a neighbor's
chimney, damaging the furniture.
Vance Randolph tells about a drunken farmer who was found in the streets
of the town one Saturday night. The pavement is not level by any means
and the poor farmer was walking with one foot on the sidewalk and one in
the gutter. A woman came along and the fellow called on her for help.
"You're just drunk," she told him. "Is that it?" he said, much relieved,
"My gosh, I thought maybe I was crippled."
Eureka Springs is laid out with 238 named streets with no direct cross
intersections. (One or two right-angle crossings have been found since
Ripley featured this item in his "Believe It or Not.") On the map the
streets look like a bewildered maze with the letters U and V formed
fifty-one times, the letter S thirteen times, O, seven times, and
perhaps other alphabetical curiosities in this labyrinth of streets.
There are five street levels on West Mountain from Main Street in the
valley to the Crescent Hotel on Prospect Avenue.
Many exaggerated tales have been told about this "crazy quilt" town.
There is the fellow, for instance, who doesn't need a picture window in
his house to observe the scenery. He merely looks up the chimney and
watches his neighbor drive the cows home from the pasture. And don't
forget the well digger who was digging a well on East Mountain. When
down about forty feet the bottom of the well fell out and he landed (on
his feet) right in the middle of Main Street. They had to change their
plans and dig the well up instead of down in order to strike water.
Eureka Springs has only two business thoroughfares, Main Street in the
valley from Planer Hill to the railroad station, and Spring Street which
branches off of Main at the City Auditorium and winds around the
mountain to the Crescent Hotel. Once, in the early days, a feud
developed among the merchants on Main (then called Mud Street) and they
built a high board fence right down the middle of the street. This made
the traffic lanes so narrow that a wagon could barely squeeze through.
The fence was soon removed by order of the city authorities. Spring
Street is lined with flowing springs--Sweet, Harding, Congress,
Crescent, Grotto, and Dairy on the Harmon Playgrounds, once the site of
the old auditorium. This street was engineered by Governor Powell
Clayton (they always called him "governor") who helped dress up the town
in the early eighties. Sweet spring was "moved" from the hollow behind
the post office to its present location on the Spring Street level.
In addition to the street layouts, other believe it or nots in the city
are the Basin Park Hotel, "eight floors and every floor a ground floor,"
the St. Elizabeth's Church, "entered through the steeple," and Pivot
Rock, sixteen inches in diameter at the base and thirty-two feet across
at the top. The hotel stands against the side of the mountain with its
street level door on Spring. It is bridged from the rear to paths on the
mountain side at four different levels. The "steeple" of the church is
in reality a detached bell-tower. It is on the Crescent Grade level and
steps lead down to the church which is set on a terrace held in place by
a twenty-foot wall. A rock can be tossed from this terrace to the roof
of the Carnegie Library about one hundred feet below on another street.
The travel distance between the two locations is about one-fourth mile.
The numerous stairways of wood and stone, connecting street levels, have
given rise to the name, "Stairstep Town." Cora Pinkley Call used this
title for her book on Eureka Springs, published in 1953. Some of the
leading stairways are: Jacob's Ladder, Sweet Springs, Magnetic Spring
Skyway, and the "upway" from Spring Street to Eureka Street. Jacob's
Ladder is a series of wooden steps up East Mountain from the Main Street
level to the Skydoor residential district on the mountain side. Rest
stops are provided along the way in the form of seats where the old may
rest and the young, perchance, do a little courting. The Sweet Spring
steps are of stone and they lead from the spring, through the tree tops,
to the terminus of two streets three hundred yards above. The Magnetic
Spring stairway is at the junction of Main street with Magnetic Drive,
reaching up to Hillside (Depot Grade). These steps are now covered with
moss and seldom used. It was once a popular walk-way from the Sanitarium
on the hill to Magnetic Spring. The winding "up way" from the foot of
Mountain Street at the Baptist Church is a short cut to a private home
called Mount Air. Taking this stairway reminds us of the tourist who
asked a native Ozarker if he was on the right road to Springfield.
"Well, not exactly," he replied, "This road just moseys along for a
spell, then it turns into a pig trail, then a squirrel track, and
finally runs up a tree and ends in a knot-hole." If you take this
stairway and path to the upper street, turn to the left and follow the
path around the mountain, you end up at the rear entrance to the fourth
floor of the Basin Park Hotel.
[Illustration: Airplane View of the City]
XVIII
THE STREET CAR SYSTEM
Eureka Springs at one time had the most unique street car system in the
nation. It began as a mule car line in 1891, but was electrified seven
years later. It remained in operation until 1923 when it was crowded out
by jalopies which invaded the town. The streets were not wide enough to
accommodate both the street car and the Model T. The total length of the
line was about three miles, but the two terminals of the main line were
only half a mile apart. The entire system was a single track with three
passing switches. The track was standard gauge and placed near the curb
at one side of the street, as the streets were too narrow for center
tracks.
John T. Brown, writing in "Trolley Sparks," says that the Citizens
Railway Company of Eureka Springs had a total of twelve cars, five of
which were closed cars operated by one man, six two-man open cars, and
one work-car which was also used as a party car. Except for two of the
cars, all were originally mule-drawn cars purchased second hand from
Houston, Texas. These cars were motorized with second hand electrical
equipment purchased from the Detroit Street Railways. In 1904, two new
summer cars were obtained from the St. Louis Car Company.
The Daily Times-Echo in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of April 24,
1905, says:
"In no other city on the continent can there be found a street railway
that leads such a winding course around and up and down the
mountain-sides as does the Citizens Electric Railway of Eureka Springs.
As you alight at the depot of the St. Louis and North Arkansas Railway
you find a well-equipped street car there in waiting, and presently you
are swung up and around the mountain side along what appears to be a
ledge or precipice, and to the timid, it seems that in each instance
there is danger of the car being hurled to the valley below. But really
such a possibility is very remote, for during all the years the line has
been in operation there has never been a serious accident. To make
safety doubly sure, the far-seeing management has had guard rails laid
all along this section of the line. From the depot up the mountain side
to the intersection with the main line at the Crescent Spring, a little
more than half a mile, the ascent amounts to a fraction over 101 feet,
or a little more than 200 feet to the mile. The main line, which circles
around West Mountain, traversing the most popular thorofare of the city
and passing most all the famous springs and principal institutions, is
not without its grades and wondrous curves.... At the Auditorium (now
the Harmon Playgrounds), the track commences a most charming and
tortuous ascent, and a feat of engineering that has challenged the
admiration of many scientific men who have visited the resort. A roadbed
had to be graded around the mountain side at angles that would seem
ridiculous were it anywhere else than in this unusual mountain range.
One car will be only a few yards from and above the other, and
apparently going in the same direction when actually, they are headed
toward opposite ends of the line. These ends, however, are only 300
yards apart, one end resting in the valley while the other is at the
mountain's peak. From the Crescent Hotel to the Auditorium there is a
descent of 140 feet.
"The equipment and service on this street railway is better than can be
found in many cities of far greater population than Eureka Springs, and
the entire system is a source of gratification and pride to our people.
Visitors make the valley echo with their merry shouts as they are
carried around its course in the beautifully decorated and lighted
trolley party cars, and the bands and orchestras of the city are
frequent participants in these festivities."
[Illustration: Trolley car.]
XIX
CARRY A. NATION
Carry A. Nation was a militant voice in the "wilderness of sin" at the
turn of the century. Her three hatchets, which she named "Faith, Hope
and Charity," cut deeply into the liquor industry. Not that the liquor
she destroyed in her attacks on bars and saloons amounted to a great
deal, but her influence in fostering nation-wide prohibition was far
reaching. She spent considerable time in jail and paid numerous fines,
but this did not lesson her enthusiasm for the cause to which she
devoted her life. Carry hated liquor, tobacco, rouge, lip-stick, and
immorality in all its phases. She operated under the unwritten law
which, she thought, superseded man-made legislation. Even some of the
churches did not condone her radical ways and closed their doors to her.
But she organized her own.
Carry married twice; first to a young fellow in Cass County, Missouri,
who called himself "doctor." He was addicted to drink and Carry could
not reform him so she left him and returned to the home of her parents.
He died shortly after their baby was born. Her second marriage was to
David Nation, a lawyer, newspaper man, and later, a Campbellite
preacher. This marriage fared better than the first one but it was not a
happy affair. Carry cut the swath for the family and David had to string
along as best he could.
Carry Nation's militant crusades against the liquor traffic began at
Kiowa, Kansas about 1900. After "cleaning up" the town to her
satisfaction she turned her face toward Wichita. She met with
considerable opposition in the big town and her raids landed her in
jail, but friends paid her out. At Topeka she used the hatchet for the
first time in her raids.
After a few years of raiding and smashing she went into chautauqua to
lecture on temperance. She made a speaking tour in Europe in 1908 and
landed in jail in Scotland where she had to serve the full sentence.
(The Scotch did not like to see their whiskey spilled). In 1909, at the
age of sixty-three, she bought a little farm near Alpena in Boone
County, Arkansas where she spent a part of her time during the year that
followed. Then she selected Eureka Springs as her retirement home and
purchased a two-story frame house on Steele Street which she named
Hatchet Hall. She decided to start a college at Eureka Springs for the
teaching of temperance. She called it the Carry A. Nation College and
erected a frame building near her home for class rooms. But the college
did not last long for in 1911, while making a temperance speech from a
buggy in the street in front of the Basin Circle, she had a stroke, and
died a few days later. Her body was taken to her girlhood home at
Belton, Missouri for burial.
XX
A BANK ROBBERY THAT FAILED
On the night of September 26, 1922, five men were camped in the woods on
the hill near where the Mount Air Court is now located, well hidden from
the traffic on U. S. Highway 62. Sitting around the camp fire were Si
Wilson, Marcus Hendrix, a 21-year-old Indian, a man named Cowan, and the
two Price brothers, Charlie and George. They were desperate Oklahoma
outlaws from the Cookson Hills, remnants of the old Henry Starr gang.
Their business at Eureka Springs was to rob the First National Bank.
Sitting around the bed of coals this September night, the outlaws
discussed their plans. Charlie Price, the leader, did most of the
talking. He outlined the plan for the robbery on the morrow at 12:05
P.M. when practically all business houses would be closed for the lunch
hour. Hendrix was to remain in the car at the front of the bank, ready
for a quick getaway.
"I guess you fellers know what you're doing," said Wilson, who had
recently joined the gang. "But don't forget what Sam Lockard and Henry
Starr said. They warned you that Eureka Springs was a deathtrap."
Price laughed and said that it would be easy because everything was well
planned.
"We'd better hit the hay and get some sleep," said Charlie. "Big day
tomorrow." As he rolled into his blankets he remembered to wind his
watch. He turned the stem carefully in the darkness but fate took a hand
and a little extra pressure sent the hands around one revolution without
his knowledge. His faithful old watch had played a trick on him.
At exactly 11:05 A.M., mistaken by the bandits to be 12:05 P.M., a car
drove up in front of the First National Bank on Spring Street. Hendrix
remained at the wheel while the four others entered the bank. The story
of the robbery and its tragic aftermath has been told in newspapers, by
Horace H. Brown in Startling Detective Magazine, and by Cora Pinkley
Call in her book "Eureka Springs--The Stair-Step Town."
Members of the bank staff on duty on September 27, 1922, were: Tobe
Smith, cashier, Fred Sawyer, teller, Mrs. Maude Shuman, Miss Loma Sawyer
and Miss Jewel Davidson. Customers in the bank when the robbers entered
were: Sam Holland, Robert Easley, John Easley and Luther Wilson. Others
who walked in while the holdup was in progress were: John K. Butt,
Claude Arbuckle and Bob Bowman, clerk at the Basin Park Hotel.
Tobe Smith saw the four men enter the bank and when they drew their guns
he stepped on the burglar alarm which had connections at the Bank of
Eureka Springs, a block up the street, and the Basin Park Hotel, the
same distance in the other direction. The robbers did not know this but
lined up the occupants of the bank, face to the wall, and proceeded to
scoop up all available cash and bonds. While doing this Charlie Price
noticed the clock on the wall. The hands stood at exactly 11:10 A.M.
Time had played its trick.
In the meantime the alarm had caused a furor of excitement in town, and
C. E. Burson of the Bank of Eureka Springs had sent a bullet from his
pistol that punctured a rear tire of the bandit's car. Young Hendrix,
getting excited, started the car slowly down Spring Street but a bullet
struck him as he reached the junction with Center Street and he turned
the car into a railing at the head of a stairway. He was captured
without offering resistance.
By this time the four bandits had left the bank with the money in a
sack, taking two of the bank employees as hostages. They knew they would
have to fight their way out and sought to escape down the stairway by
the Times-Echo office which leads to Center Street. Guns were popping
and bullets flying everywhere. Si Wilson was killed instantly, George
Price died a few minutes after being taken to Dr. R. H. Huntington's
hospital, Charlie Price died from his wounds a few days later.
Cowan was wounded. He and Hendrix were sentenced to terms in the state
penitentiary.
Eureka Springs citizens who battled with the outlaws were: Ernie Jordan,
Joe McKimmey, Jess Littrell, Robert Bowman, Homer Brittan and Sam
Harmon. The story of their courage in defeating this desperate gang
without loss of a man was told in newspapers throughout the country.
None of them were wounded except Ernie Jordan who received a powder burn
in the face. F. O. Butt, Eureka Springs attorney, was president of the
First National Bank at that time. He had his office over the bank
building. He was glad to see the sack of money and bonds returned
without loss. It had been dropped on the Center Street stairway during
the fight.
XXI
INSPIRATION POINT
The Ozarks is a land of dreams. Some of them succeed, some fail.
Traveling through the hill country we find numerous ruins of partially
built projects, that reveal the urge of man to build and perpetuate.
"Coin" Harvey's Pyramid at Monte Ne, the Kingston Project in Madison
County, the old Chautauqua Assembly at Sulphur Springs, the numerous old
hotels at once-popular watering places, ghosts of a past era when the
water cure was a national fad, social and cultural colonies, the
lengthened shadows of promoters or reformers, that existed for a few
years and then passed into oblivion. These are monuments to dreams that
failed or prospered for a season and then passed out.
On the other hand there are numerous active enterprises in the hills
such as Ted Richmond's Wilderness Library in Newton County, and the
famed "School of the Ozarks" near Hollister, Missouri. Other projects
have been built with broad business perspective such as the town of Bull
Shoals. Churches have been successful in establishing permanent
institutions such as the Sequoyah Assembly at Fayetteville and the
Subiaco Academy in Logan County. Some projects with more than local
interest were started by one person and completed by others.
The unique stone building called "The Castle," located at Inspiration
Point in Carroll County, on U. S. Highway 62, six miles west of Eureka
Springs, was originally the dream of a Texas inventor and oil man. In
the 1920's, W. O. Mowers of Dallas selected this scenic point as the
site of a palatial country home because of its comparative isolation and
the view of White River 500 feet below. Being a world traveler, it
reminded him of scenery on the Rhine River in Germany with which he was
familiar, and he visualized the replica of an old German castle. The
rock used in the construction of the building was quarried near the
village of Beaver, five miles away. Each stone was cut to fit a certain
place in the structure and was put together like a jigsaw puzzle. The
living room was made 30 by 44 feet, with a huge fireplace at each end.
Pointed rock covered the exterior, following an Egyptian plan of
architecture.
After spending about $80,000 on the project the Texas man was unable to
complete it. In 1932, the building and several hundred acres of land
were purchased by Charles Reign Scoville, a noted traveling Evangelist,
of the Christian Church. He completed the building and made it a
regional center for evangelism and religious training. This scenic spot
overlooking the river and the spacious valley was a great inspiration to
the preacher-evangelist, so he named it Inspiration Point. This name has
now become a permanent geographical feature. Mr. Scoville lived only a
few years to enjoy his dream.
In 1938, Mrs. Scoville gave the property to Phillips University of Enid,
Oklahoma, to be a Christian center where individuals and groups might
come for spiritual refreshment, and for study and training. The project
has made rapid growth during the fifteen years it has been operated as a
service institution. It now has an assembly hall and dormitories where
groups may come for a day or a week, or longer. As many as 100 persons
may be cared for at one time. Rev. and Mrs. George P. Rossman are
directors and managers of the project.
The big attraction at the present time at Inspiration Point is the Fine
Arts Colony held for six weeks each summer. It is directed by Professor
Henry Hobart, of Phillips University, and provides instruction in music
(piano, organ, voice, theory, band and orchestra instruments), drama,
speech and painting. The opera workshop produces a light opera each
summer, which is taken on tour after having been produced locally.
Groups begin coming to Inspiration Point in April and continue until
November. Tourists are welcome at the Castle at all times of the year
and they come by the thousands to see its unique construction and to
view the articles of antique and historical interest left by Mr. and
Mrs. Scoville. The view of the White River Valley from "The Point,"
which includes the ranch of Dr. and Mrs. Ross Van Pelt, is one of the
finest in America.
[Illustration: The Castle at Inspiration Point]
XXII
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS