National Water Center, Eureka Springs, Arkansas
         

National Water Center, Eureka Springs, AR

Updated: April 2014 Contact: Contact: NWC

Contents ©1999-2014 by National Water Center. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Founding of a Spa

Eureka Springs was founded upon the belief that there was healing for human ills to be found in the pure, clean spring waters which flowed freely from deep inside the earth. The community's century-long history is based upon that beginning, and at least a part of the attraction to today's visitor or new resident relates to that heritage of belief in the life re-creating properties of the waters.

In a few short months in the Spring and Summer of 1879, hundreds of people poured into Eureka Springs, attracted by tales of miraculous cures. The quiet mountain wilderness around the more than sixty springs suddenly opened to throngs of suffering humanity. An encampment sprang up around the Basin Spring, and this soon became the center of a thriving new community to be given the name Eureka Springs on July 4, 1879. Daily claims of healing grew, and as many regained their health and strength they began to band together to build a town. Within three years the population exceeded ten thousand, and the new resort was on its way to becoming a fashionable, widely-publicized health spa, as well as a beautiful and gracious city of the late Victorian period.

The laws and ordinances they enacted a century ago prevail today, assisting the modern community to carry on in the tradition of respect and reverence for the gift of waters that healed . . . .

How The Waters Were Used for Healing

It was widely believed and published that the healing waters of the Eureka Springs were most helpful when taken at their source, although water shipping - by bottles, kegs and barrels - was one of the earliest, most successful businesses. A guidebook of 1881 date, published locally, described specific ways to use the waters of the springs in the treatment of various ailments. Visitors were constantly urged to drink copious amounts of the spring waters and to bathe the afflicted parts of the body. Most carried water in tin pails back to their hotel or boarding house for use in bathing and to drink at night. Visitors often walked to and from their favorite spring several times a day to drink the water and visit with other health-seekers. Bath houses were a popular feature of the resort and were patronized by most visitors.

Water shippers sent Eureka Springs water to points all over the country, and their promotions helped create interest in a visit to the springs where the visitor might drink and make use of the waters at their source. Boiled spring water (boiled down to one-fourth of its original quantity) was used externally for treatment of eye problems and all manner of skin disease. 

Each person generally had a favorite among the springs and used those waters exclusively, attributing cures to the source. The same guidebook notes "Our Eureka Springs (we mean all of them) furnish water especially adapted to preserving and restoring health."

How the Waters Healed

     There were varied opinions among early-day  residents as to how the waters cured. Thousands of persons testified, vocally and in print in local newspapers and guidebooks, to myriad cures, collectively citing a long list of diseases and ailments. Doctors in the era of the late 19th century had little to work with in treatment of illness. They often pronounced a case incurable when their resources failed. Many medical men all over the country recommended such patients to health spas, and great numbers of them came to Eureka Springs. They came by hundreds and thousands, and most were healed or received such benefit that they sang the praises of the life-restoring waters.

 There were many medical men practicing in the resort, and they offered varied opinions as to why the waters healed. Dr. Charles E. Davis, most prominent among them, declared it was the purity of the water that gave it healing power. He wrote extensively for medical meetings and journals, thus increasing the interest in Eureka Springs. Another, Dr. W. W. Johnson, wrote: "The action of our waters in the cure of disease is well marked, and although opinions may be divided as to how they cure, all agree that they cure. Some may say that there is no virtue in medicinal waters and the cures are due to other causes. Then, we say, show us what the causes are."    

All agreed that hundreds were cured. Every person who came to the Springs began by drinking and bathing in the waters. As soon as possible, invalids joined their neighbors hiking up and down the rocky slopes, walking miles every day in the clean, fresh mountain air. Those early health-seekers ate a simple diet, exercised extensively, slept regularly, and in many ways lived the kind of life which permitted the utmost function of the body's own inherent recuperative powers. Perhaps that was the "secret" of their miraculous experiences of healing. Each individual answered this question for himself, according to his own understanding, just as we must do today . . . .

Dr. Jackson's Testimony

The discovery of the springs is attributed to Alva Jackson, a pioneer Carroll County doctor. He was a hunter as well, and often hunted bear in the hills, making camp many nights at the spring we now call Basin, known to him as Indian Healing Spring. He was familiar with the ancient Indian legends of a healing spring and believed he had found it here as early as 1856. For many years, he utilized the waters in treating patients, always carrying it along in his medical bag. In 1881 he wrote:

I, Alva Jackson, do hereby certify that the following statement of my discovery of Eureka Springs . . . is in all particulars true and correct; about 24 years ago I was hunting bear at the head of Leatherwood. About 10 o'clock my dogs, three in number, started in and ran a panther into a hole in the cliff about thirty yards above the spring . . .

There were large rocks in the hole that I could not get out without help, so I returned home but came back next morning with my son, William, and seven others. My son had sore eyes at the time, and he complained that he did not feel like work; therefore, I advised him to wash his eyes in the Spring, for I had believed for a long time that there were some medical properties in the spring. He did so some three times during our stay at the spring. The next morning you could not have told my son ever had sore eyes. His eyes were completely cured, and this convinced me that there was medical virtue in the water. 1 went back the third day to further examine the spring. When I had cleaned and washed the Basin out and examined it thoroughly, I felt fully satisfied that I had found it [the Indian Healing Spring of legend]. And having used and tested the water fully for twenty-four years, I am convinced, in my own mind, it is the spring spoken of by the Spanish discoverer [Ponce de Leon] of this country. I am a graduate of the Douglas Medical School of Kentucky. [Signed] Alva Jackson."

Historical Analysis of the Waters

In an effort to promote greater use of the spring waters and to reinforce their claims of healing, professional analyses of the waters from various springs were undertaken and the results widely published. One such analysis was made in 1880.

"Office of Wright and Merrell
Consulting and Analytical Chemists
310 North Eleventh Street
St. Louis, Missouri

May 3, 1880

To: B. M. Hughes, M.D.
Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Dear Sir: The Sample of Natural Water, submitted by you for analysis and marked from Eureka Springs', contains:

Total solids, per gallon, .220 grammes, equal to 3.397 grains, of which there is of barbonate of Lime, in solution, .104 grammes, equal to 1.606 grains.

Soluble Silica, .007 grammes, equal to 0.108 grains

Organic matter, composed of Crenic Acid, [according to Mulder], .026 grammes, equal to 0.400 grains

Extractive matter, .074 grammes, equal to 1.141 grains

Loss, .009 grammes, equal to .138 grains.

This water is remarkable for its great purity, as its specific gravity (which is, at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, only 1.000103,] and the small amount of solid matter found, each indicates. The very small amount of solids held in solution, and consequent purity of the water, renders it a powerful absorbent and remover of disease, while the very large amount of gases stimulate the system and build up the wasted tissues. In this particular, the water is very similar to the celebrated medical springs at Wiesbad and Baden in Germany.

Respectfully, WRIGHT & MERRFLL"

The Springs from an 1881 Listing

Groundwater tracing work in Eureka Springs has given much valuable information about the spring system of Eureka Springs.

Local Sources

On discovery is that the springs of Eureka Springs get their waters from local sources. Contrary to myth, they are not draining areas tens or hundreds of miles away, but rather the areas where most residents live.

Boone Formation - limestone with chert; highly fractured, extremely porous; up to 250 feet thick.

St. Joe Limestone - two units in the area. Upper - finely crystalline limestone; forms bluffs; fractured; has caves; 30-45 feet thick. Lower - less resistant; more slopes than bluffs; shaley; 12-24 feet thick.

Chattanooga Shale - fissle shale; less than 1-10 feet thick.

Sylamore Sandstone - massive medium grained sandstone with shale interbeds; makes ledge below Chattanooga Shale; 2-25 feet thick.

Powell Formation - thin-bedded, silty dolomite; 20 feet thick.

Cotter Formation - weathered dolomite with interbedded chert; some sandstone in upper sections; over 150 feet thick.

Two Groundwater Systems

The Chattanooga Shale, lying under the limestone layers, is an important factor in Eureka Springs' spring system. In most areas this shale is impermeable to water. Generally water moving down through the upper layers of the Boone Formation and St. Joe Limestone cannot pass through that shale layer. Therefore, it flows laterally through the St. Joe Limestone.

Abundance of Springs

The presence of two groundwater systems is one reason for the abundance of area springs. Most springs in the upper groundwater system would not exist without the Chattanooga Shale. The area's valleys parallel the contour lines of the Chattanooga Shale, spreading the underground flow into many small springs.

Recharge of Springs

An important aspect of the spring systems is that the springs in the upper groundwater system are recharged by rainfall and other waters entering the surface in Boone Formation or St. Joe Limestone. This has direct bearing on the rate of groundwater movement through the spring system. Groundwater tracing has shown that water moves hundreds, or possibly thousands, of feet per day through the subsurface to reach a spring.

The springs have a rapid response to heavy rainfall, indicating that the systems are composed of channels. With this situation, there is little soil contact, limiting natural filtration or absorption.

An additional 14 springs were located in the hollow where the water reservoir was situated.  These were named for trees:

Spring System of Eureka Springs

Eureka Springs: Founded Upon The Waters That Healed

by June Westphal