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.
In Mill Hollow we have the famous Ozarka Spring, the only Eureka Springs 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.”