Main Street History (page 1)
Running for 1 ½ miles in the long hollow between the town’s two main mountains, Main Street has a played a supporting role in Eureka Springs’ colorful history. It is somewhat overshadowed by the more glamorous Spring Street on West Mountain which has more healing springs and more elegant buildings.
Main Street’s water feature is Leatherwood Creek, which was prone to frequent flooding. In his eyewitness account of the founding of Eureka Springs, Professor L.J. Kalklosch wrote, “It being the first street in town… it was named Main Street. But owing to its low elevation and the law of gravitation, the water would find a level in the street, and as the immense travel created an abundance of mud, the street was nicknamed ‘Mud Street’ a name without music or elegance.”
However, Main Street has always had a personality of its own as the industrial core of Eureka Springs. The northern end had the railroad and the southern end had lumber mills with a wide variety of businesses in between. This was the area of the railroad, utilities, small factories creating onyx souvenirs, brooms, flour, soap, as well as wagon yards, livery stables and feed stores. There were many services: groceries, meat markets, cobblers, and stores selling hardware, notions, heating oil, plus second-hand items.
Fires in 1883 and 1888 destroyed most of the early buildings. New ones were rebuilt of brick and stone, but at the same street level. In the 1890s, there was a major improvement project to provide a wider surface for Main and Spring Streets. This often raised the new thoroughfares up to second story level in front of many businesses whose ground floor doors and windows then faced the new retaining walls a few feet away. Thus, a series of buildings along Main Street and downhill on Spring Street turned ground floors into basements connected by narrow passageways that were once storefronts. In the 1930s the major streets were paved in concrete to attract the new affluent automobile travelers to downtown. At the “top” of Main Street there was a lumber mill and planing operation that was in business for decades.
The rest of Main Street is known locally as Planer Hill. On old maps it is identified also as West Main and Arsenic Spring Street. The small house up the hillside on the west side was built around 1890 by lumberman Benjamin Woodruff. The Granger-Kelley Lumber Company saw and planing mill was at the top of the mountain where Community First Bank is now located. When the business was sold to S.H. Bullock, it was moved to the east side of Main Street. After it burned in the early 1960s, the Bullock Manufacturing Company closed and later generations of this family built a small motel which expanded into the current Best Western Eureka Inn.
The Calif family home and store at 95 S. Main was built in 1889 and occupied until the 1920s. It was home to the local Elks Lodge for many years until becoming the ES Historical Museum. In 1948 the Ozark Folk Festival was started to raise money for this museum dedicated to Ozark history. The Calif Spring, aka Table Rock Spring, itself is below the odd round stone structure from the 1930s which holds an ultraviolet light sanitation treatment system. A watering trough for horses still remains.
The log
cabin next door was the studio of writer Cora Pinkley Call, whose family had been in the
Ozarks since the late 1700s. The original cabin was moved from Mill Hollow to the museum in the
1990s.
Across the street, in the early days structures such as the Table
Rock Bath House bridged Leatherwood Creek.This, of course, meant they were frequently flooded
after heavy rains. The small limestone building at 90 S. Main was a blacksmith
shop, then a dwelling for many decades before turning back to commercial use.
The east side was home to a variety of livery stables in the early years, then auto garages and car dealers. The current Trolley Depot was the site of Mattocks Garage, which evolved from horses to cars early on. The Bank of Eureka Springs sits on the site of numerous past liveries and finally the Higgins General Store. On the west side of Main Street, the Local Flavor restaurant was the Christian Science Reading Room until the 1980s and the nightclub at 75 S. Main was the American Legion Hut.
The 1900 corner limestone building was home to the Central Bank that became a wholesale grocer in later years, serving as a central supplier to the many corner grocery stores throughout town. The adjoining stairway is actually Rock House Avenue. Up the stairs, behind the building is Rock House Cave, said to be a hospital during the Civil War where injured soldiers from both sides were treated with water from Basin Spring. In early rough days of Eureka Springs, the cave was the Rock House Saloon. The buildings on the rest of this block housed stores with a mix of practical items – hardware, paint & oil, groceries, flour & feed. This block also offered an automobile repair garage operated by the Hussey family and Fire Station #1.
When Eureka Springs was incorporated in 1880, the Carroll County Courthouse was in Berryville, 12 miles east across the Kings River. In bad weather it was difficult to get in for court or business. The Arkansas Legislature later voted to allow a second courthouse here. The Western District Courthouse. Constructed in 1908 in an Italiante style designed by local builder W.O. Perkins. It still serves as a county courthouse with city offices on the lower level.
The groundbreaking ceremony for The City Auditorium was held on April 11, 1928, with the whole town turning out for the occasion. The building spanned a deep ravine between Main and First Street. It offered a 1,500 seat theatre and a basement gymnasium which served local schools until the 1960s. The Auditorium opened with a grand performance by John Philip Sousa and his orchestra on September 13, 1929. The theatre and lobby were renovated in 2004 with a National Park Service Save America’s Treasures grant. Nationally known acts perform here regularly and The Aud still hosts the town’s local important events such as graduations, pageants and festivals.
North of the James & Beck Building, there was originally a skating rink. When this burned, an Opera House was built. This stood for decades as a venue for live touring companies and local talent, then modified for movies. By 1923 it was the Pentecostal Mission; then it was demolished. Still standing is the James & Beck Building. Built in 1888 by Richard James and Charles Beck, it originally featured a fine clothing store street level and upstairs residence. In 1930 Edgar J. Chandler opened a grocery store here. South of this is the Freeman Building site of a hardware & furniture store. In 1952 the Clark Brothers) opened the town’s first modern supermarket. This block up to the Auditorium was renovated in time for ES Centennial Celebration in 1979.