Some visited for employment or for health benefits and stayed. In 1881, Eureka Springs enjoyed the status of Arkansas's fourth-largest city, and by 1889 it had become the second largest city, behind Little Rock.Įarly African-American residents were freedmen who had moved to the city from farms where they were previously enslaved. Thousands of visitors came to the springs based on Saunders's promotion, and covered the area with tents and shanties. On February 14, 1880, Eureka Springs was incorporated as a city. Within a short time in the late 19th century, Eureka Springs had become a flourishing city, spa and tourist destination. Within a period of little more than one year, the city expanded from a rural spa village to a major city. Saunders started promoting Eureka Springs to friends and family members across the state and created a boomtown. Saunders, a friend of Jackson, claimed that his crippling disease was cured by the spring waters. After the war, Jackson marketed the spring waters as "Dr. Jackson established a hospital in a local cave during the Civil War and used the waters from Basin Spring to treat his patients. Alvah Jackson was credited in American history with locating the major spring, and in 1856 claimed that the waters of Basin Spring had cured his eye ailments. After European Americans arrived, they described the waters of the springs as having magical powers. The European Americans also believed that the natural springs had healing powers. The hills and valleys of the area are ancestral lands of the historic Osage Nation, and bands of Delaware and Shawnee peoples also lived in the area before the federal government conducted Indian removal further west. People of various indigenous cultures long visited the springs for this sacred purpose. Native American legends tell of a Great Healing Spring in the Eureka Springs area. History Downtown View of Eureka Springs from atop an observation tower the Crescent Hotel is visible on the horizon (2008) St. The streets wind around the town, with few intersecting at right angles. Some buildings have street-level entrances on more than one floor and other such oddities: the Basin Park Hotel has its front entrances on the floor below first, and a ground-level emergency exit in the back of the building on the fifth floor. The buildings are primarily constructed of local stone, built along limestone streets that curve around the hills, and rise and fall with the topography in a five-mile long loop. The historic commercial downtown of the city has an extensive streetscape of well-preserved Victorian buildings. The city has steep winding streets filled with Victorian-style cottages and manors. It is a tourist destination for its unique character as a Victorian resort, which first attracted visitors to use its then believed healing springs. Eureka Springs was originally called "The Magic City", "Little Switzerland of the Ozarks", and later the "Stairstep Town" because of its mountainous terrain and the winding, up-and-down paths of its streets and walkways. Eureka Springs has been selected as one of America's Distinctive Destinations by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 1970 the entire city, as of its borders at that time, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Eureka Springs Historic District. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 2,166. It is located in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas, near the border with Missouri. Eureka Springs is a city in Carroll County, Arkansas, United States, and one of two county seats for the county.
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