“‘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.