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Eureka Springs – How We End Up Here!
By Sandra CH Smith, Innkeeper – Cliff Cottage Inn
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When guests check into Cliff Cottage Inn, one
of the first questions they ask me is, “How on earth did you
end up in Arkansas?” I know by this question that they have
already heard or read somewhere that I spent seven years sailing
a 35-foot sailboat alone from San Francisco to 1837 miles off
the Galapagos Islands…well, the leg from Puerto Vallarta to the
Galapagos was actually done on a 28-foot sailboat with a Captain
Bligh act-alike, but that’s another story.
Almost everyone in Eureka has a story or two
to tell. The first question you ask when you meet someone new
is, “And how did YOU end up in Eureka?” Someone was on his way
to his grandmother’s funeral in Memphis when he took a wrong
turn and ended up in Eureka…and never made it to the funeral!
Someone else ran out of gas on her way to Chicago and she’s
still here…15 years later! Another heard about Eureka when he
was rafting down the Colorado River with some hippies and here
he is, standing on your front porch with all his possessions out
in the U-Haul, asking if you know any nice houses for
rent…cheap!
Eureka Springs is a strange place, in a way. Locals
will tell you Eureka isn’t meant for everyone… in fact, they often
whisper that Eureka will “spit you out” for no reason whatsoever, if you
don’t belong here. |
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
photo provided by
Eureka Springs Advertising & Promotions Commission |
Usually, it is agreed, if you’ve made
it two years in Eureka, well, then, maybe you’re meant to be here… just
maybe. Often, just about at the two-year mark, someone will suddenly
find himself packing up his things to leave, never knowing exactly why.
For flatlanders coming here from Tulsa or KC or Texas,
the trip isn’t always easy. Dramamine is often a good thing to have in
the glove compartment. Like all intriguing destinations, Eureka is kind
of hidden away, located by driving some very windy and curvy two-lane
“roads” (some feel these are just un-engineered paved-over cowpaths)
through the Ozark Mountains (part of the Boston chain of mountains.. the
oldest in this hemisphere). Many believe Eureka is a vortex…a crossing
of two energy fields… such as Sedona, Arizona or Macchu Picchu or
Waynesboro, NC. Many claim and swear to have seen aliens here
(especially in the 60s and 70s) and books have been written about alien
ships going in and out of Beaver Lake. In fact, the largest alien
convention in the world is held in Eureka each April, attracting
scientists from all corners of the globe.
Many visitors come to Eureka for the charming
quaintness of it all…the entire downtown is on the National Historic
Registry, with its 63 springs, all within one mile radius of the center
of town, its 56 miles of retaining stone walls, its 60,000 cubic yards
of locally-quarried limestone in the walls of homes and business
buildings.
“That’s enough stone for a wall four-foot high,
one-inch thick, 66 miles long, “explains Gladys Sands, former curator of
Eureka’s Historical Museum. “In the roaring 1880s, it took workmen eight
to ten years to build all this,” she adds.
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Others come for the antique shops, art galleries and
fine restaurants; still others, for the many festivals, concerts and
theatre events. At the turn of the last century during the late 1880s,
Eureka was home to 32,000, mostly here for “the cure” they felt the
springs offered. It was probably the very first “RV park” in America –
they came with their horse and wagons, parked the wagons on a hillside
near the springs and took the horses out of town to pasture. There are
over 1200 springs in the western district of Carroll County where Eureka
is situated, according to one well-respected local. Today, we have 2200
residents although many of them leave during the wintertime. There is a
whole group of Eurekans trying to re-establish the village as a healing
center and because of this, healers of all means and methods are moving
to Eureka, rekindling the curative fires once stoked here hundreds of
years ago by Native American healers.
Locals like to trade stories of a Eureka phenomenon
which goes something like this: Guests check in to Cliff Cottage Inn and
the very next morning, they come in to our Great Room, and a little
bashfully, ask me what it’s like to live here in the winter, and then,
if I know a good realtor. Oh, oh… they’ve been bitten by the Eureka bug,
lured, perhaps, by the mountain air filled with positive ions that
create a sense of euphoria in the new arrival. Next thing you know,
they’ve bought a place!
Me? I first heard about Eureka in Mexico where, after
seven years of sailing alone, I impulsively sold my boat to a wealthy
Mexican man. His friend had been looking at boats and when he saw mine
in the harbor, he asked if I would consider selling it. “Done,” I said,
having just returned to Puerto Vallarta after a nightmare experience at
sea. He then asked me to move all the stuff off the boat as his buddy
was flying in from Mexico City in two days to see whatever boat he had
come up with. “And especially get off all that pink stuff,” he added,
referring to all my custom-made hot pink sail covers, awnings and trim
canvas. I also had four years worth of food on the boat, not to mention
all my books, artwork and souvenirs I had collected during the odyssey.
He said I could sail the boat around to his villa and put it all in his
living room for the time being. He had two men help me and off we loaded
everything. His friend loved the boat, of course, and the next day, I
realized that all of my life was stored in a strange man’s villa.
I called an American woman I knew who had babysat my
parrot the year prior when I sailed to Costa Rica with this Captain
Bligh fellow. Janet had a huge property outside of town and I asked her
if I could bring “a few things” up to her house. I told her I had just
sailed back to Puerto Vallarta for repairs after an attempt to get to
the Panama Canal had gone awry. I had taken a young man along as crew to
help satisfy the canal’s requirements for four hands on deck to handle
the monkeyfist ropes and fend the boat off. I figured arriving at the
Canal in my hot pink boat with the pink flamingo on the stern with one
crewman was better than arriving with none. Somewhere out in the middle
of the Pacific, the crewman fell asleep at the helm, jibed the boat and
broke the 20’ boom off that held up the mainsail….we were in a capsize
and sinking situation!
During the ordeal, as the boat is heading towards the
rocks, the mainsail is ripping to shreds, the motor won’t start and the
boom is dragging in the water, pulling us over, I said to this young man
from Alabama, who was now screaming hysterically “This is no fun
anymore. If I can get us out of this mess alive, I’m moving to
Arkansas!” He said, “Why Arkansas? Ever been there before?” I said,
“Nope and I don’t even know where it is on the map; but I hear they have
hillbilllies shooting each other Saturday night behind the outhouse and
it sounds just terrible, but it sure sounds better than this!”
The rest of the story is history…..in less than six
weeks, I was signing papers to buy Cliff Cottage and then designing and
building The Place Next Door! That was 12 years ago and I am still
having a love affair with Eureka Springs!
Cliff Cottage Inn (www.cliffcottage.com) is filled
with treasures from the innkeeper’s travels and guests often spend an
evening listening to her tales of the High Seas!
Information submitted
by:
Sandra CH Smith, Innkeeper
Cliff Cottage
Inn - Luxury
B&B Suites & Historic Cottages
Heart of Historic Downtown (42 Armstrong)
Eureka Springs, Arkansas 72632
479-253-7409
Photo provided
by:
Eureka
Springs Advertising & Promotions Commission
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