The first sign of trouble was when Center Street downtown started caving in near DeVito’s Restaurant. An investigation showed the rock retaining wall holding up the street and sidewalk was deteriorating. Emergency repairs are now underway, after a 10-ft. deep pit was dug beneath the street revealing the stone wall in a state of collapse.
Center Street is a primary artery for beer and food supply trucks in downtown Eureka Springs. Often large trucks would pull over into the loading zone of the east side of the street and park while doing deliveries. James DeVito, owner of DeVito’s Restaurant, said the heavy idling trucks, combined with a retaining wall that was more than 100 years old, were a recipe for collapse.
“It is the second time it has happened,” DeVito said. “The same thing happened four years ago with the retaining wall about twenty feet toward Basin Park. I was in my kitchen downstairs the first time that wall caved in. Some retaining blocks actually hit my wall. I peered in there and saw the retaining wall had collapsed.”
The city bears responsibility for replacing the retaining wall because it holds up the street and sidewalk. Excavation work is being done by the city while Advanced Masonry has been hired to replace the rock wall. Zack Martin, stonemason and owner of Advanced Masonry, estimated that the project would take a couple weeks to complete during which time Center St. will be closed intermittently.
“It’s a big job,” Martin said. “The retaining wall that needs to be replaced is twenty-five feet long and about ten feet tall.”
The sidewalk is being held up with timbers while the stonewall work continues.
Although traffic has been closed part of the time on this portion of Center Street, DeVito said it hasn’t impacted his business that much.
“This is definitely the time of year to do things like that,” he said. “I’m just amazed something laid up more than a hundred years ago lasted as long as it did, which is a testament to the people who built this town. We had a lot of good craftsmen pass through here.”
What was found when the hole was dug was part of what some might call “underground Eureka.” Tunnels were created when retaining walls were built to construct buildings on steep hills while allowing storm water drainage.
But DeVito said the hyperbole about underground Eureka needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as it is not quite as grandiose as some people would like to portray.
“The sequence is the retaining wall was laid up to have a street, and the sidewalk came next,” DeVito said. “The void under the sidewalks served a number of functions. It allowed water to go under the lower floor of the building, which it does in my case, and at a number of other structures in Eureka.”
The situation on Center Street is the type of issue that is not rare in a town founded in 1879.
“What the city faces is a crumbling infrastructure,” DeVito said. “It is hard for a town of two thousand to keep up with it. At one time Eureka Springs was the second largest city in Arkansas, with a population ten to fifteen times what it is now. The infrastructure was built to accommodate a much larger population than we have today. How many miles of retaining walls do we have, some that you don’t see? I believe it is something like twenty miles. We are a unique town in many ways. Nobody in their right mind would build a town with this kind of steep topography, but it was the healing springs that attracted people and they built wherever they could to be near the springs. Otherwise, we were just a cute little valley in Arkansas.”
DeVito said he doesn’t have concerns about his building, which was built around 1905, being in danger from the collapsing retaining wall. He has done architectural archeology of his building while doing various remodeling projects. Initially the building was a big concrete slab – supposedly the first concrete structure in Eureka Springs – with piers and a roof making a structure that was used as a taxi stop.
“It has undergone some transformations,” DeVito said. “It used to have a four-foot concrete wall on the side of the building towards Main Street that I believe was used so taxis wouldn’t fall off down the mountain onto Main Street.”
He added that it is an engineering feat in Eureka Springs for buildings to be plumb, true and standing upright on steep slopes. He marvels at the work done by early craftsmen building massive structures such as the Crescent Hotel and the Basin Bark Hotel.
“We have some pretty incredible architecture in this little burg, everything from the hotels to Thorncrown Chapel,” DeVito said. “It is the structures built here that distinguish it from any other place I’ve been in. We just have to keep it all going.”