Chapter 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!'"