  Among the pioneers who settled in the vicinity of the Indian Healing Spring before the town of Eureka Springs was founded was the Gaskin family who located on Leatherwood Creek in 1856. “Uncle Johnny” as he was affectionately called by his friends, was one of the famous bear hunters of the Ozarks and he left a record of his hunting adventures in a booklet entitled, “Life and Adventures of John Gaskins in the Early History of Northwest Arkansas.” This little book, published at Eureka Springs in 1893, tells the Gaskin story from the time the family moved from Washington County, Indiana to Carroll County, Arkansas in 1839, up to and beyond the founding of Eureka Springs half a century later. Most of it consists of his hunting escapades (he killed 200 bears in thirty years), but there are some references to his neighbors and the economic set-up of that day. In the introduction he tells about the discovery of the springs and the community’s early development. “As I was one of the first settlers in the country, living along the creek three miles below Eureka Springs for thirty-eight years, I will tell something about the discovery of that place. “I had hunted all over these mountains—killed bears and panthers and many other wild animals in nearly every gulch and cave in that vicinity. I have killed nine bears in the hollow near the Dairy Spring and many deer, for that was a good place for them. My regular stopping place was the Rock House, or cave, above the Basin Spring in which Alvah Jackson camped on his hunting trips. We often camped there, using the Basin water for our coffee and never imagining it was more than pure water, until Uncle Alvah camped there with them. They simply dipped the water up from the little basin. “Then Uncle Alvah began to use the water for other diseases, finding that it was beneficial. He induced Judge Saunders and Mr. Whitson to go there in the summer of ’79. Then others began to come and were cured and benefitted; the whole sides of the mountains were covered with tents. “I was there every day, watching and wondering. The people crowded around the Basin Spring (that was the only spring at first, though in a short time others were discovered) dipping up the water that poured down over the rock into the little basin, one waiting on the other. “I would watch for hours, wondering how it could be that I had used the water so long and now to see the crowds gathering there for the cure of all kinds of diseases. Many who were not able to walk would use the water and be able in two or three weeks to climb the “One incident that happened that summer impressed me with solemn thoughts. For lack of a house a great many people gathered under the trees one Sunday to hear the preacher. A rain came up and we all retired to the rock house. As I listened to a good sermon and saw the preacher laying his book on the rock where I had so often set my coffee pot, my mind ran back to the many times I had camped here, to times when the scream of the panther or the growl of the bear mingled with that of my dogs in the fight. Little did I think that afterwards I would sit here and hear the voice of the man of God echoing among those rocks. I was convinced that the all-wise Creator had not made these mountains and valleys merely for the wild beasts. “People kept pouring in, and in the fall and winter of 1879 my house was always full of sick and helpless people who had no shelter. We could never turn them away, and many times my wife and I had to give up our own bed. “One miraculous cure I remember was that of a young man who was brought helpless to my house by his father. He had rheumatism and had to be carried in from the wagon. He drank freely from the keg of Basin water we had at the house, and then his father took him to town the next day and bathed him in the water two or three times a day. In one week they came driving back and the boy was sitting up in the seat and could get around very well. The old gentleman started on to his Missouri home with his son and a barrel of Basin water.... “The town built up rapidly without much form or improvement of streets until after Governor Clayton located here, and through his influence and energy the town soon had a railroad and passable streets, and then the springs were improved and the streets fixed, adding much to the looks and comfort of the place. Now it is one of the most picturesque towns to be found in the state, and is visited both for health and pleasure. The town has many magnificent buildings and substantial enterprises, including the Sanitarium Company, which has grounds near Eureka Springs and is doing much in the way of improvements. The beautiful scenery in every direction fills the visitor with astonishment not to be described with the pen.” One story is told about John Gaskins and his encounter with a bear near Oil Spring on the outskirts of Eureka Springs. Some say it was another hunter who killed the bear, but the incident is usually credited to Uncle Johnny. The White Elephant rooming house was located near where Mount Air Court now stands. It was in the early eighties and Eureka Springs had no water system such as we have today. Water was carried from the springs for drinking water and household use. “Aunt Min” who operated the White Elephant was worried. It was customary to send a couple of girls to Oil Spring down under the hill for water, but a bear had been seen in the vicinity of the spring and the girls were afraid to make the trip. Water was needed at the White Elephant so “Aunt Min” sent for Uncle Johnny Gaskins, a famous bear hunter, who lived on Leatherwood Creek north of town. Uncle Johnny arrived at the White Elephant early one November morning, his trusty double-barrel muzzle loader in the crook of his arm. He would get the bear if it had not already taken to its den for the winter. “Take a bucket and bring back some water,” said “Aunt Min.” The hunter took the wooden pail in one hand and his gun in the other and started down the hill, his eyes alert for bear tracks. It was a cold morning and he put his hands into his pants pockets, carrying the bucket in the crook of his left arm, the gun in the crook of his right. Two hundred yards down the hill the trail makes an abrupt turn to the cliff from which flows the Oil Spring. At this point Gaskins came face to face with a large black bear followed by a half-grown cub. He had killed many bears in close quarters and seldom got excited about it. But this occasion called for quicker action than he had ever experienced. Before the hunter could get his hands out of his pockets the bear had the end of the barrels of the gun in her mouth, chewing like mad. There was no time to get the gun to his shoulder so he fired from the hip, pulling the triggers of both barrels with his left hand, the bucket still on his left arm. It stopped the bear all right, almost blowing the animal’s head from its shoulders, but it did more than that. The end of the barrels in the bear’s mouth caused the gun to explode. Gaskins got a severe wound on his right forearm from the “kick” of the gun. The end of the barrels were twisted out of shape by the explosion. You may see the twisted barrels of this old gun at the Ozark Museum, Highway 62 West, Eureka Springs. Go and see for yourself.... Oh, yes, they had bear steak and spring water for dinner at the White Elephant that day. Vance Randolph gives this tale under the title “Uncle Johnny’s Bear” in Who Blowed Up the Churchhouse? (New York, 1952), pp. 72-73. In his notes (p. 200) he says: “Told by a resident of Carroll County, Arkansas, March, 1934. This individual credited it to Louis Haneke, who used to run the Allred Hotel in Eureka Springs. Sam Leath, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce at Eureka Springs, told an almost identical story in 1948, and showed me the remains of a shotgun which he said was used in killing the bear. Otto Ernest Rayburn wrote a story based on Leath’s account. It was published in the Eureka Springs Times-Echo (April 20, 1950) and reprinted in Ozark Guide (Spring, 1951, p. 53). Rayburn says ‘the twisted barrels of the old gun may be seen at the Ozark Museum,’ which is on Highway 62, west of Eureka Springs. Both Leath and Rayburn give the name of the hunter as Johnny Gaskins, who killed more than two hundred bears and wrote a book (Life and Adventures of John Gaskins, Eureka Springs, Ark., 1893, pp. 113) describing his hunts in great detail. But Gaskins does not mention this adventure. Some old residents think it was Johnny Sexton who killed the bear at the ‘White Elephant.’ Cora Pinkley Call (in Pioneer Tales of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. 1930, p. 24) prints a photograph of Sexton with a shotgun in one hand and a wildcat in the other without any reference to the White Elephant. Constance Wagner tells the story in her novel Sycamore (1950, pp. 151-52), but doesn’t mention the bear-slayer’s name.” The Basin Spring as it appeared in the early days. |
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