“The cannon stands on a carriage about 3½ feet high. The barrel is almost five feet long and about six inches in diameter at the muzzle. Near the breech is a small touch hole where powder was used to fire the piece. The cannon can be moved up or down on the carriage, but to aim it right or left it is necessary to turn the carriage. Apparently the gun was fired in the general direction of the enemy during battle.
“Eureka Springs citizens used to pull it to a mountain top and fire it on July 4 or to celebrate some political victory, but this custom has long since ceased.”
“Old Chapultepec” was sacrificed for scrap metal during World War II and at the close of the war the government sent the city a captured German howitzer which was placed in the Basin Circle where it now stands.
One of the highly prized memorials of our “Stair-Step-Town” is the Kerens Chapel and the St. Elizabeth’s Church which is widely known as “the church entered through the steeple.” This is misleading as the entry is through a detached belfry and then down a stone corridor and steps to the chapel and church. The chapel was built as a family memorial in 1907 by Richard Kerens, a St. Louis capitalist, who was one of the owners of the Crescent Hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Kerens and their children, Vincent, Richard, Jr., and Gladys, spent three or four months of each year at the Crescent. Mr. Kerens’ mother sometimes accompanied them.
One day Mr. Kerens and his mother were on the promenade at the south end of the hotel talking. As they talked a boy approached Mr. Kerens with a telegram. It was a notification from Washington that he had been appointed ambassador to Austria. He immediately packed his bags and took a carriage to the railroad station. As the vehicle crossed the spot where the chapel now stands he waved good-by to his mother who was standing on the promenade. That was the last time he saw her for she died while he was abroad.
When Mr. Kerens returned to this country he began making plans for a memorial to his parents. He wanted it located on the exact spot where he last saw his mother. He secured the land and had the hillside properly terraced with a thirty foot reinforcement wall. This wall was set eight feet in the ground and was five feet thick at the base in order to give it a solid foundation. The foundation of the chapel went down eighteen feet to make it secure. The structure was dedicated in 1907. Two years later, Mr. Kerens financed the building of St. Elizabeth’s Church adjacent to the chapel, combining the two buildings. It is one of the most beautiful little churches in America and is visited by thousands of tourists each year.
Perhaps the most unusual enterprise in Eureka Springs is the lay-out of the town itself. Was it built haphazardly or with definite plan? Powell Clayton and other city fathers probably knew, but they long ago passed to their rewards. They were inspired men and had great faith in the future of the fabulous City of Springs.
St. Elizabeth’s Church