By Cynthia Morin

“…And Your kingdom shall not pass away – O ‘Ancient of Days’ ”

Eureka Springs officially became a city in July, 1879 when the first house was built and the city was named. Situated in Northwest Arkansas, upon the headwaters of Leatherwood Creek, a tributary of the White River, the town was built on approximately twenty hills, divided by 19 canyons and ravines.

The Eureka Springs Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. Though the city reached its historic significance as a unique health resort community, representative of the latter part of the 19th century, it also is noted for its extensive “roadside culture” along one of the National Auto Trails, U.S. Hwy 62, dating from the 1920s through the1960s.

The story of Eureka Springs as a healing sanctuary may indeed be the story of the ‘Ancient of Days’. History and legends tell us it began long before the 1800s. . .

The area of the White River in Arkansas County of the Missouri Territory (later to be Arkansas Territory and then the State of Arkansas) was both home and hunting grounds in the early 1800s to many emigrant tribes of Southwest Missouri – Algonquin tribes such as Kickapoo, Shawnee, Delaware and Peories, as well as the Osage and Northern Cherokee.

It is known that tensions existed between the Osage and their neighbors to the north, the Cherokees. As game became scarce, many of the tribes sent hunting expeditions into the White River area.

Legends tell that when these varied tribes arrived in the area of the sacred “healing waters” of the Ozarks, weapons were laid down. The stories from the native traditions told of the ‘clear, cool springs emerging from wooded ridges’, and of sacred waters which possessed healing powers and life-sustaining energies.

A ‘basin’ was described by Osage chief White Hair and reported in 1847 by J.M. Richardson. Chief White Hair told of the “Medicine Spring” flowing in the foothills between the White and Kings Rivers, and the smooth basin the ancestors had carved into the stone. Richardson, visiting the site in 1880, found the spring exactly as White Hair had described.

In the mid-80s, white settlers in the area heard and reported these legends. Dr. Alvah Jackson, a pioneer doctor, and John Gaskins, a hunter living on Leatherwood Creek, each described a carved stone basin a foot or more in diameter, and the cold spring water filling it. Jackson was the first to record its healing properties, reporting how his son’s inflamed eyes were healed after washing them in the basin’s pure water. For years, he bottled and sold the water as “Dr. Jackson’s Eye Water”.

During the Civil War, Dr. Jackson frequently treated the sick and wounded of both armies. In February of 1865, he attempted to nurse some Confederate soldiers back to health. Northwest Arkansas was then occupied by Federal troops. It was necessary for the invalids to find sanctuary in the mountains. They were moved into the Eureka Springs area, camping on the bluff above “Indian’s Healing Spring”, later named Basin Spring. In a few months the soldiers had fully recovered.

The medicine qualities of the springs were acclaimed again in 1879 when Dr. Jackson induced Judge Saunders, of the County Court, to attempt a cure for his skin ailment. Judge Saunders, following Dr. Jackson’s advice, was reportedly cured within ten weeks and the word spread quickly throughout the state.

In the 1880s, visitors arrived by railroad at Pierce City, Missouri, (traveling south the fifty-five miles to Eureka Springs by hack; a nine hour trip) or at Ozark, Arkansas (requiring an eighty-five mile, nineteen hour journey north through extremely rough mountain country).

The Spa, or ‘watering place,’ along with patent medicines, remained a distinct part of the American Scene until the first quarter of the 20th Century, when many Americans were led to doubt the efficacy of ‘cures’. Some of the watering places made the transition from health spa to vacation resort; often with emphasis on horse racing or gambling. The health spa phase peaked from 1880-1890 and finally ended for Eureka Springs after the turn of the century.

Although Eureka Springs suffered a loss of visitors after the federal government began regulating medicines, the opening of the National Auto Trails in the 1920s brought in a new type of visitor – the motorist. U.S. Highway 62, which ran along the edge of town was one of these trails. A roadside culture of filling stations, motor camps, motorcourts, motels, cafes, and gift shops located along Route 62 attracted a new group of travelers seeking sanctuary, continuing well into the 1970s.

After WWII, many began to discover Eureka Springs as a unique, old-fashioned town, visiting it not as a health resort but as a pleasant getaway, a place of refuge, falling in love with its turn-of-the-century ambience; its unique houses and streets clinging to the hillsides. Artists, writers and retirees began to establish residences here. The 1950’s and early 1960’s construction of Beaver Dam and the extended use of the lake as a recreation area brought new visitors to discover the beauty and magic of the area.

About 1982 through 1992, one hundred years after the early ‘Spa’ era, a small group of massage therapists began to revitalize the healing arts of the area. The Palace Hotel & Bath House (extensively restored in ‘82-’83) became the unique ‘training ground’ in Eureka Springs for the newly licensed massage therapists. (Massage Therapy in Arkansas has been regulated by licensure since 1951.) A number of the therapists ventured out on their own, establishing the first of many massage centers and private massage practices here, including Carol Brown, Healing Benefits (1988), and Scott and Donna Bree Thompson, HealthWorks (1992). With the opening of the White River School of Massage in 1992, Northwest Arkansas had once again established itself as a growing spa industry for those in search of healing and sanctuary.

Cynthia Morin is co-publisher and editor of Spirit of Eureka. Contact her at 479-253-7079 or Email

Photo Credit (Massage Therapists posed at Magnetic Springs in Eureka Springs – photo by Thomas Morin): Spirit of Eureka asked a group of Eureka Springs massage therapists to pose for a photo representing the therapists who worked in the 1980s and early 1990s, building the foundation upon which the current healing arts and spa industry were built. Pictured in front of Magnetic Springs in April: (from left) Lynn McMurry, Carol Brown, Alexa Pittenger, Bree Thompson, CIndy Covell, Scott Thompson, and (second row) Dale Johnson and, Rebecca Babbs