When we speak of parks, or in the context of Eureka Springs, our spring reserves, Harmon Park, Black Bass Lake City Park and Lake Leatherwood City Park, we speak to the heart of our collective heritage the enjoyment of this place we call home. The reason Eureka Springs exists is because Eureka is springs, and now one of the more important activities of modern park systems – trails.
In Cutter’s Guide to the Eureka Springs of Arkansas (Cutter and Trump, St. Louis 1884) Charles Cutter writes “forty springs afford the residents pure, sparkling water, and within 2 miles of the city center, nearly 200 springs flow… they can hardly be deemed ‘mineral waters’… they are ‘medicinal waters’…” and, “Those afflicted with any of the following diseases have reasonable ground to hope.”
His list includes asthma, Bright’s disease, cancer, constipation, catarrh, diabetes, disease of the eye, dropsy, and dyspepsia. That is just A through D in an alphabet soup ranging from female complaints to solace for general debility. People flocked here to experience the miracle of hope in the face of intractable health issues. They traveled where roads were but trails. There was no railroad. They arrived by horseback and foot. The covered wagon; the RV of the frontier West was a tent on wheels, hauled by horses, bearing stocks of water, food, and goods; in a word – home.
A city was founded in the wilderness on July 4, 1879. Within a year, photos show that virtually all of the native vegetation was completely annihilated. Forested hillsides were transformed into naked mud. The demise of spring water quality began at that moment. Yet, the miracle of the healing waters rang true. If you were constipated, drinking water laden with a fresh influx of bacteria from human waste would predictably loosen one’s stool – constipation cured.
In February 1886, at least 13 ordinances established spring reservations of the City’s well-known healing springs, the heart of properties for which we are all stewards. Add to that footpaths, walkways, and now improved trails for recreational mountain biking and hiking trails.
The collective American park ethos is to leave things better than you found them. If you take something in, pack it back out. Leave the rocks where they are, and don’t pick the wildflowers. Take only photos. We are all stewards of these collective treasures.