I came, I saw, I concurred that Blue Spring is one of Mother Nature’s miracles. It was a quarter of a century ago when I first visited this lovely spot, located seven miles northwest of Eureka Springs. Since that time I have been a frequent visitor to this liquid giant from the unknown.

Blue Spring is the outlet of a subterranean river with a constant flow of about 38,000,000 gallons of pure water daily. It rises straight up from its mysterious bed, forming a circle about seventy feet in diameter. The depth is unknown. Soundings have been made, once in the nineties, the old-timers say, with strong bed cord attached to a 125 pound anvil, and again near the turn of the century by a party of engineers who let a 16 pound hammer down 512 feet. Neither weight reached bottom. The pressure of the water was sufficient to defy penetration into the blue depths.

The water taken from this spring is clear, white and transparent as plate glass, but the water in the spring is blue in appearance. Sometimes it is almost indigo in hue, but when taken out of the spring is white and transparent. A geologist who tested the water recently expressed the opinion that it is glacial water similar to that of Lake Louise in the Pacific Northwest. It was the opinion of some of the old-timers who lived near the spring that the water came from Kings River twenty miles to the east. When this stream was on the rise, the spring had increased flow, so they said.

Many legends have been handed down about this famous spring. One of them is that Spanish adventurers who supposedly invaded the Ozark country in the latter part of the eighteenth century, sunk a mine shaft at the present location of Blue Spring. They walled the shaft with logs. Several hundred feet down they struck an underground river and a geyser-like eruption occurred. Then it settled down and became a peaceful river with the old mine shaft as an outlet. The pioneer English settlers named it Blue Spring because of the blueness of the water.

This spring was once the site of an Indian encampment, according to Sam A. Leath who is an authority on Indian lore in the Ozarks. The cliffs had hieroglyphics to tell the story, but most of them have been erased by the hand of time. Numerous arrow heads and Indian relics have been found in the vicinity. The historic “Trail of Tears” over which the Cherokees trekked, passed near Blue Spring.

The pioneers saw economic possibilities in this vast flow of water and built a dam a few hundred yards below the spring near where the spring branch enters White River. A flouring and saw mill, operated by a turbine, was built on that spot. But the mill is now gone and only the turbine remains. Plans were once made to pipe the water to the railroad some three miles away and ship it for drinking purposes. No analysis of the water is available, but it is said to be soft and pure.

The dam below the spring forms a moss-lined lagoon that is a picture out of the book. Rainbow trout sport in the crystal water to test the angler who tempts them with his lure.

Blue Spring with its 400 acres of enchanted woodlands in a horseshoe bend of White River is owned and operated by Mrs. Evan Booth, formerly of Chicago. She lives in a picturesque modern cottage overlooking the spring and lagoon and keeps the project open the year around as a tourist attraction.