I began writing about the Ozarks in 1925 and have written and published about one million words on the history and folklore of the region. My books, to date, are: “An Ozarker Looks at Life,” (1927); “Dream Dust,” (1924); “Roadside Chats,” (1939); and “Ozark Country” of the American Folkways Series (1941). Most of my writing has been for magazines and newspapers and for my own Ozarkian publications: “Ozark Life,” (1925-30), “Arcadian Magazine,” (1931-32), “Arcadian Life Magazine,” (1933-42), and “Rayburn’s Ozark Guide,” (1942 to the present time).
In addition to the authors who have produced books, there are a score or more of writers in Eureka Springs who write for magazines and newspapers. Some of them are professionals, others write for their own pleasure. If all the stories, articles and poems produced in this town were assembled into books and placed alongside the volumes already published, it would make a sizeable library. Not many communities can boast of such a literary output.
Eureka Springs has been a mecca for artists for many years. Several years ago, Louis and Elsie Freund bought Hatchet Hall, the old home of Carry A. Nation, and made it into an art center. For several years they conducted a summer art school. Other Eureka Springs artists, whose works I have observed are: William Farnum, Fred Swedlun, Glenn Swedlun, Lester M. Exley, W. F. Von Telligan, Mr. and Mrs. L. V. Orsinger, Verne Stanley, Virginia Tyler, Art Foster and Bonnie Lela Crump. I am sure there are others who deserve mention but I have not seen their work. Most of the above are professional artists who work with oils and water colors. Some do pen sketches. Thousands of paintings and drawings have been made of the scenery and quaintness of Eureka Springs during its seventy-five years of history. If all of these creative products could be placed on exhibition at one time it would make a row of pictures miles long.
Time marches on and not many of the men and women of the pioneer eighties are with us today. Among those who are native born or who came in their youth when the town was a booming spa are: Mrs. Annie House, Jim Bradley, Mrs. Fred West, Mrs. Wilma Jarrett Ellis, Mrs. C. A. Fuller, Mrs. Louis Haneke, Mrs. May S. Miller, Mrs. Chrystal Lyle, Wallace McQuerry, Otis McGinnis, Joe Hoskins, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Porch, Sam Riley, E. A. Jordan, Tom Walker, Walter Burris, T. L. Hawley, Mrs. Claude Pike, Charlie Perry, Mrs. Maud Woodruff, Frank Pickard, Mrs. Alice Campbell, Mrs. Lida Mae Roberts, and perhaps a few others. Most of these older residents now live in retirement, but a few are active in business.