“To give it still more the appearance of an old time camp meeting, ministers of the gospel were here, and preaching was not uncommon. The preacher’s stand was frequently a large rock, and the gravelly hillsides answered for seats to accommodate the audience. The hillsides were spotted with camp fires to warm the usual ‘snack’ or to bake the ‘Johnny cake,’ as up to that time there were no boarding accommodations and each visitor brought his provisions with him. One of these fires had burned a tree partly off at its base, and while nearly all were engaged in the noon-day repast, a tree fell and struck the wife of Professor Clark of Berryville, causing her death in a short time. This was the first death at the famous springs, and a very sad one. The remains were taken to Berryville and interred there, to rest until it shall so please the Almighty Being to give all mortals power to put on immortality.
“Judge Saunders’ shanty was soon followed by another, and another, until the idea of a grocery suggested itself to Mr. O. D. Thornton. People were coming in daily and when their provisions failed they were compelled to go out for a new supply. This Mr. Thornton decided to remedy, at least in the line of groceries. Soon a rough plank house was erected near the spring and the first stock of groceries brought to Eureka Springs, amounting possibly to $200. People began to rush in and plank or box houses were soon scattered over the hillsides and across the gulches, all trying to get as near the spring as possible without thought or regard of system or anything.”[12]
Mr. Kalklosch continues about the growth of the town and mentions the importance of the saw mills operated by Mrs. Massman and Mr. Van Winkle. The first boarding house was set up by a Mrs. King from Washburn, Missouri. She could accommodate only five or six boarders and was always full to capacity. Then the Montgomery Brothers put in a stock of merchandise and did a thriving business.
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.