Crescent Spring and Trail

Crescent Spring was revered for its healing waters almost as much as the basin, the legendary Indian Healing Spring. Situated beside the Wagon Road on a hillside with a rocky outcropping described as crescent shaped, the spring was soon given that name, as was Crescent Hotel, the fine limestone structure built at its summit in 1886. Street maps dated 1886 show a stone retaining wall and a circular enclosure of stone at the spring. Adjacent to it, twelve stair steps of dressed Beaver limestone lead to a public thoroughfare ten feet in width extending to Park Avenue on the hillside above. An artist's sketch of Crescent Spring published in 1881 shows a simple wood shed built to shade and protect the waters. The shed was replaced by an ornate wood gazebo with a copper clad roof constructed by 1886. Wooden benches, a boardwalk, and gas street lamps were in place by 1886, creating a beautiful promenade for resort visitors. Crescent Spring and a reservation of the hillside above and on either side of the spring were set aside in the original plat of the town site surveyed in August 1879, and named spring reservations around the principal springs, including Crescent Spring, were established by Ordinance No. 1 in April 1880 upon the incorporation of Eureka Springs as a city.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas · United States