Upper Spring Street ( page 3 )
With two lovely spring reservation parks and its buildings clinging to the bluffs, this is one of the most scenic
blocks in Eureka Springs!
West side: Sweet
Spring Hotel was built in 1887, a spacious and gracious lodging. It was later a hospital, Huntington’s
Infirmary. The hospital closed in 1929 but re-opened again as a residential hotel in 1930. It burned in the early
1940s and site remained vacant until the Carroll County Abstract and Title Company building was constructed in 1994
-- a good example of local new downtown commercial construction of brick and native limestone.
Sweet SpringNamed by early townspeople who declared the water to have a pleasant, sweet taste. The spring was originally located in the deep ravine below the present site. A long wooden stairway led up from the spring to the narrow wagon road then known as Rice Street, now Spring Street.. In 1882, a long footbridge was built over the ravine behind the Post Office and later maps show a “driveway” behind the Wadsworth Building. Scan 26 Around 1885 the spring opening was relocated to its more accessible location. The exceptional stone circular enclosure juxtaposed against the limestone bluffs and lovely gardens have made this a popular respite spot. The stone stairway leading to streets above was built in 1916 with funding from the Eureka Springs Woman’s Club.
Cliff houses: Built in 1885 on a rocky ledge, these houses are among the oldest in town. TheLamont Hotel, Whitcomb Cottage, East View Cottage have long provided unique photo opportunities for visitors. The Lamont and Whitcomb were recently restored after a long period of neglect.
East Side of Upper Spring
Sweet Spring Building: As was not uncommon, this building has served a wide variety of uses over the years. It was the Sweet Spring Bath House, then an annex for Sweet Spring Hotel. In 1904 the lower floors housed: express office, tailor, ladies barber and undertaker. In the 1950s it was Webb’s Café, a popular restaurant sharing the building with the Smith Drug Store which offered: “drugs, sundries, soda fountain, souvenirs, room to park and plenty of shade.”
Palace Hotel still appears as it was built 1901 of local limestone. The spa baths used water from Harding Spring on lower level; guest rooms on upper floors. The spa still has most of these original fixtures.
137 Spring was originally the studio of photographer Lucien Gray who did most of the town’s postcards in the first 25-30 years.
Harding Spring was one of the original spring reservations established by ordinance No.80 on February 16, 1886. The bluff was known as “Lover’s Leap.” A trail leads from the bluff up to the Historic Loop or across the mountain to Sweet Spring.
Across the streetwhere there is now a parking lot was The Waverly, an early boarding house. The
one-story building above this was the Roof
Top Café, a popular restaurant with a garden on the roof featuring “the choicest of flowering and foliage plants.”Next
to the restaurant was a splendid home known as The
Gables.Both were owned by the F.A. Pickard family, early residents who had a fine furniture store on Main Street. Howell
Street was originally called Harding Avenue. Unfortunately most of the fine homes on both sides were destroyed
by fire. An old-fashioned wooden sidewalk going up French Street gives a taste of walking in days past, plus interesting
views of the buildings on tiny lots backing onto the hillside.
On the lower side of Spring Street Howell becomes German Alley. This area was the African-American
neighborhood at the turn of the century. In 1900 this community had an African Methodist Episcopal Church on Center
Street and the Little Crescent Hotel across from Crescent Spring. By 1925 this community was practically nonexistent.
East Side of Spring:
Sanford home at 151 Spring was built by an early Eureka Springs stonemason William Sanford. The wrought ironwork is original.
Granger House, at 155 Spring was the home of early lumberman R.S. Granger whose lumber mill was located at the south edge of Main Street.
Piedmont House 135 Spring is one of the town’s earliest lodgings. It was built hastily in fall of 1880; another boarding house was built 9 feet away. In 1889 the two buildings were joined and encircled with verandas on three levels.
West Side of Spring
Methodist Church: 160 Spring was originally the Methodist Episcopal Church South, built in1901. The congregation relocated in the 1990s and it has become a fine lodging with the steeple recently restored. Daffodil Cottage, 158 Spring, was the parsonage, and a building at 156 Spring was the Sunday School building. A fire in 2005 destroyed 156 and the back of 158, both of which are being rebuilt.
“Perkins Houses” The homes at 170 Spring (J.O. Melone) and 172 Spring (Jennie Westfall) were built around 1900 by W.O. Perkins, Eureka Springs’ master builder. His mill and lumberyard still exist on Center Street. (See “Center Street” box.)
Crystal Terrace located above Spring Street is the town’s finest example of Carpenter Gothic style. Built in 1880 by Dr. Charles Davis, a prominent physician, it was named for his daughter Crystal, the belle of Eureka Springs. The Davis Family entertained lavishly, so carriages would cross the wooden bridge, let off guests and continue out onto Park Avenue (now Crescent Drive.)
McLaughlin Block. The McLaughlin Meat Market and Congress Spring Grocery at 190 Spring, was very modern when it was built in 1900 -- considered to be one of the finest stores in the Midwest. Stone to construct the building was blasted out of the bluff and cut on-site. Behind the building is a cave with Congress Spring still flowing.
Carnegie Public Library was completed in 1912. The Eureka Springs Improvement Company donated the land. This is one of four Arkansas libraries built with funds from Andrew J. Carnegie. Conditions of the Carnegie grant were that the community had to furnish the land and maintain it as a free public library. With this building Eureka Springs was in the forefront of the struggle to provide free books to the public. In 1920 less than 7% of the people in Arkansas had such access to free public libraries! Before the library was built, there was a beautiful gazebo marking the entrance to the Crescent Hotel from Springs street with a long stairway leading to the hotel. (A reproduction of this gazebo stands across the hollow as the East Mountain Overlook.)
Crescent Spring and Trail. Originally called Crystal Spring, this was another popular spring.. The Gazebo was built in 1885 to replace earlier structure destroyed by fire. Landscaping, benches, street lights and sidewalks were also installed then to create a lovely promenade. Water from this spring was pumped up the mountain to the Crescent Hotel. There is a walking path up to St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church (open for viewing) and the Crescent Hotel (also open to the public with a fine overlook on the fourth floor.)The land above the spring is the Crescent Spring reservation were set aside for public use in the original plat of the town.
Street Railway Intersection: This is where two of the street car lines intersected. From 1891 until 1899 public transportation was provided by mule-drawn street cars. They traveled a three mile tract from the railroad depot up Hillside to this place where it intersected with the main line which ran from Basin Spring to the Crescent Hotel. In 1899 the streetcars were electric. They seated 75 people and ran from 8 a.m. until late at night. There was a special party car gaily lit with colored bulbs. The railway ceased in 1912 and most of the tracks removed. This intersection is little changed today, except the wooden sidewalk is gone.
The Boulevard is the residential part of Spring Street with the fine homes of Eureka Springs early professional class. Through the years, some of these homes have been lost to fire and newer ones built to fill in. However, the street remains a flat, interesting walk through time. Walkers can cut up Crescent Grade to the Crescent Hotel or continue around The Boulevard past Grotto Spring and arrive at the Crescent Hotel via a longer route.
First Presbyterian Church, 209 Spring was in 1886 of the same limestone as Crescent Hotel. The congregation was organized early in town history – 1882 – but met in a big tent for the first year. The original tall wooden bell tower is being restored. The church’s manse is across the street.
Crescent Cottage, 211 Spring,is the first of the fine homes winding down The Boulevard. It was built in 1880s as home of Governor Powell Clayton. Clayton was a general in the Civil War and governor of Arkansas during Reconstruction. He moved to the community as part of the Eureka Springs Improvement Company, a group of wealthy men who were very influential in making Eureka Springs into the modern spa and resort of the 1890s. This group, ESIC, built the Crescent Hotel, put in gas lines, electricity for street, homes and business, and streetcars, built a reservoir and water and sewer lines, settled property disputes, platted the town and put in wooden sidewalks. When McKinley was elected president, he appointed Clayton as ambassador to Mexico and the family moved from Eureka Springs.
Center Street
Running parallel to Spring Street, Center Street has never been quite as fancy. In early years several important boarding houses such as The Lansing did a good business here.
Continuing north, the second block of Center was the home and business of W.O. Perkins, a man who definitely left his mark on Eureka Springs. He constructed some of the nicest homes in town and the Courthouse. Perkins’ Mill was a regional center for the production of fine store and office fixtures as well as ornate interior and exterior wooden trim. In the 1890s Perkins walked into Eureka Springs carrying a few woodworking tools. By 1897, Perkins’ factory contained 8,520 square feet of floor space with the most up-to-date machinery. The home, mill, sale barn and offices still stand on Center Street.
Photographs courtesy of The Bank of Eureka Springs, Eureka Springs Historical Museum.
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