Editor,
We just returned home from another trip to Eureka Springs, we’ve been going for 18 years; engaged, honeymooned there & celebrate our anniversary aligning with the Christmas parade.
This trip, we stayed in our camper on Table Rock and a made a day trip into Eureka. Staying on Table Rock was wonderful, except for the flies! There were thousands of flies; I even made my own flytrap with a bottle of sweet tea. They’d swarm the bottle and the sweet tea would coat their wings and they’d drown. (I digress).
Memories of bubbles floating down the streets from Delphia Dreams, street artists played music, every storefront alive, soda shop with the coldest Cokes and the toy store full of items you’d see nowhere else, Basin Park full of life with people selling wares, playing music and the melting pot of the entire town. Magical memories.
Eureka has become empty, hollow and with more vacant storefronts than occupied. Eureka is so focused on their social issues that they are destroying the town with their sanctimony. I see rainbow flags on many store fronts but the day after Labor Day, I did not see an American flag. Remember the flytrap story: Eureka has become like those flies that seem to be drawn to the sweet tea.
The town is dying in the best economic environment the country has seen in decades. The magic is gone. Please, get your heads out of the sanctimonious clouds where you’re social and political views are your identity and get grounded so there’s something left of the magic that Eureka Springs once was.
Jim and Renee Johnson
Tax revenue up almost 15% over last year? Changing, yes. Dying, no.