  One of the treasured thoroughfares of Old Eureka Springs was the foot bridge which spanned the canyon at the rear of the stone building, now the Sweet Spring Apartments. The south terminus of this unusual structure was at the rear of Jim Black’s shoe shop. It was a short cut to the business section on Spring Street in the vicinity of Sweet, Harding and Crescent Springs. The original Sweet Spring was in the hollow at the rear of the post office to the left of the bridge. This spring was tapped higher up on the bluff when Spring Street was laid out. Another unusual structure was the “Bridge Studio” built by Sam A. Leath and Steele Kennedy in 1931. The site of this covered bridge, built for artists and writers, was at the tourist court owned by these two men—Camp Leath, now Mount Air. It was built across a ravine at the rear of the court and was a little more than 100 feet in length. Leath and Kennedy were the sole builders of this structure and their methods stand unique in the annals of engineering. The two ends of the bridge were built alternately, section by section, coming together in the center. After building one end, the opposite position was accurately located by Kennedy with a small bore rifle. A board was held by Leath at the north end of the bridge, indicating where the top deck at that point would be. Kennedy placed the shot at the exact point desired. The trueness of the shot was later proved with a level when the two approaches were closed with the central span. The “Bridge Studio” was built for the artists and writers of the Ozarks. The lower deck had five compartments fitted with chairs, tables and lights. The doors were never locked. A large crowd attended the dedication of the “Bridge Studio” on May 3, 1931. Dr. Charles H. Brough, World War I governor of Arkansas, was the speaker. The story of the unique bridge and its idealistic purpose was told in newspapers throughout the land. But it was a dream that soon faded. When Sam Leath sold his court in the middle thirties and became manager of the Chamber of Commerce at Harrison, the “Bridge Studio” was torn down. A unique business enterprise in the early days at Eureka Springs was the C. H. McLaughlin grocery, said to be one of the cleanest, best equipped and best arranged groceries in the United States. Mr. McLaughlin built “a better mouse trap” and the world made a beaten path to his door. Another interesting project, located four miles north of Eureka A recent project, built by Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Quigley on their farm four miles south of Eureka Springs is “Quigley’s Castle.” It has been called the Ozarks’ strangest dwelling. It is a large stone house with the outer walls covered with great flat stones set on edge and held together with cement. These walls are covered with small, colorful picture rocks and fossils which Mrs. Quigley picked up over a period of years. She engineered the building of the house and placed the rocks in position. These walls are a geological treasury. The inside of Quigley’s Castle is a botanical garden and family home. The light enters through eight large picture windows. The rooms are built independent of the outer walls with the first floor three feet from the ground and a four foot space between wall and room. In this space grow many varieties of both tropical and Ozark plants such as rubber trees, rose bushes, oleanders and a banana tree. Some of these plants grow to a height of twenty-five feet, extending almost to the roof. The second floor has a waist-high railing built around the rooms to prevent stepping off into space. Small bridges permit passage across the chasm at points of entry. The iron dog which once stood on the pedestal in the Basin Circle where the soldier monument now stands is a missing link in the Eureka Springs story. Photographs made from about 1907 to the early thirties show this dog. According to the old timers, this iron monster, which weighed 400 pounds, once belonged to a family named Squires and was an ornament in the yard of their home on the hillside at the rear of the Basin Park Hotel. One Halloween night about 1907 the boys moved the iron dog to the park and set it on the pedestal. In bringing it down the path back of the hotel they broke off its tail. The city authorities let it remain on the pedestal until in the thirties, when it disappeared and the soldier monument took its place. No one seems to know what became of the dog, but it is reported that it may be seen in the yard of a home at Springfield, Missouri. Old-timers will remember “Old Chapultepec,” the cannon which was captured by United States troops during the battle of Chapultepec in the Mexican War and brought to Eureka Springs by General Powell Clayton when he located here in the early 1880’s. In 1933 J. Rosewater had an article on this old relic in an Arkansas newspaper. Quote: “In the yard of the Missouri and North Arkansas railway at Eureka Springs, the wood in its once sturdy wheels so decayed they provide a very wobbly support, stands a muzzle-loading cannon, so old that few in this community know its history, or how it came to be in the depot yard. “Old-timers said the cannon was called ‘Old Chapultepec,’ and that it was captured by United States troops during the war with Mexico at the battle of Chapultepec in 1847. It saw service during the Civil war and was left at Little Rock, where Gen. Powell Clayton, Reconstruction governor of Arkansas after the Civil war, obtained it and brought it to Eureka Springs in 1882, while making his home here after he ceased to be governor. “For years it was displayed at public places in the city and at one time stood on the lawn of the Crescent Hotel. General Clayton gave it to the city and it was moved to the depot, Clayton being interested in the Missouri and North Arkansas railway, which was known then as the St. Louis and Eureka Springs railway and terminated at Eureka Springs. Several years later a group known as the Civic Improvement Association built an inclosure and a pedestal for the cannon. “The cannon stands on a carriage about 3½ feet high. The barrel is almost five feet long and about six inches in diameter at the muzzle. Near the breech is a small touch hole where powder was used to fire the piece. The cannon can be moved up or down on the carriage, but to aim it right or left it is necessary to turn the carriage. Apparently the gun was fired in the general direction of the enemy during battle. “Eureka Springs citizens used to pull it to a mountain top and fire it on July 4 or to celebrate some political victory, but this custom has long since ceased.” “Old Chapultepec” was sacrificed for scrap metal during World War II and at the close of the war the government sent the city a captured German howitzer which was placed in the Basin Circle where it now stands. One of the highly prized memorials of our “Stair-Step-Town” is the Kerens Chapel and the St. Elizabeth’s Church which is widely known as “the church entered through the steeple.” This is misleading as the entry is through a detached belfry and then down a stone corridor and steps to the chapel and church. The chapel was built as a family memorial in 1907 by Richard Kerens, a St. Louis capitalist, who was one of the owners of the Crescent Hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Kerens and their children, Vincent, Richard, Jr., and Gladys, spent three or four months of each year at the Crescent. Mr. Kerens’ mother sometimes accompanied them. One day Mr. Kerens and his mother were on the promenade at the south end of the hotel talking. As they talked a boy approached Mr. Kerens with a telegram. It was a notification from Washington that he had been appointed ambassador to Austria. He immediately packed his bags and took a carriage to the railroad station. As the vehicle crossed the spot where the chapel now stands he waved good-by to his mother who was standing on the promenade. That was the last time he saw her for she died while he was abroad. When Mr. Kerens returned to this country he began making plans for a memorial to his parents. He wanted it located on the exact spot where he last saw his mother. He secured the land and had the hillside properly terraced with a thirty foot reinforcement wall. This wall was set eight feet in the ground and was five feet thick at the base in order to give it a solid foundation. The foundation of the chapel went down eighteen feet to make it secure. The structure was dedicated in 1907. Two years later, Mr. Kerens financed the building of St. Elizabeth’s Church adjacent to the chapel, combining the two buildings. It is one of the most beautiful little churches in America and is visited by thousands of tourists each year. Perhaps the most unusual enterprise in Eureka Springs is the lay-out of the town itself. Was it built haphazardly or with definite plan? Powell Clayton and other city fathers probably knew, but they long ago passed to their rewards. They were inspired men and had great faith in the future of the fabulous City of Springs. St. Elizabeth’s Church |
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