Eureka Springs

Last Thursday I traveled up to the Ozarks not to take pictures really but to help my Aunt clear away some tree limbs that fell in her yard after the big ice storm. The ice never hit Little Rock, but as we drove farther north it was easy to see the large amount of damage caused by the storm. In some places it looked as if every single tree had been wounded by the ice. Fallen limbs littered the ground, and many trees had just toppled over completely.

On Friday, with our work finished, we decided to drive the short distance over to Eureka Springs to have a look around. Eureka Springs is one of the more unique cities in the state. Now with a population of around 2,350, Eureka Springs was once a bustling resort city built around the healing powers of the springs found there. The downtown area of the city is lined with fine old Victorian buildings, and the entire city is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. These buildings have been preserved and it is a great place to visit and take pictures.


Most of the historic downtown is built along the steep hillsides, and the winding roads through town are curvy and meet at odd angles. In fact there isn't a single intersection there that actually meets at a right angle, and none of the crosswalks are perpendicular. This shot is taken from under the Basin Park Hotel, which was built in 1905.


I wish I knew more about the city and its history. But there are several signs along the way with little bits of information about the old buildings. This one made me laugh like a 12 year old kid:


And a few more views of the historic downtown:




Eureka Springs is an amazingly diverse little town. It is a refuge for artists, who have established several galleries there. It is also the only city in the state that recognizes domestic partnerships. On the other side of the coin, it also the home of the Great Passion Play, a large outdoor play that follows the last days of Jesus. The seven story Christ of the Ozarks sits on a hill and overlooks the town. It's amazing how diverse this little mountain town is.


It was warm that day (in the 60s), but there was still some ice left in some of the shaded areas. This sidewalk still had about an inch of ice left. It must have been awful to try to get around Eureka Springs during the worst of the ice storm.


I've been up here a few times before. My Aunt doesn't live that far from here, so we would go into Eureka occasionally for dinner while I would visit. I spent a few days here when my college roommate (who is from Eureka Springs) got married. I haven't really explored the town yet. A lot of the roads were still coated in ice so we didn't drive around as much as I would have liked. I'll have to head back up there again soon.

This is the county courthouse, which was built in 1908.


On the way home, we stopped by the Buffalo National River at Tyler Bend. There was some tree damage at the higher elevations, but there wasn't any damage along the river. The Buffalo was running high, and it made me want to make a camping trip soon. I can't wait to head back up there again.

The Ruins of Fort Chaffee

After leaving Charleston, there was one place I really wanted to visit, which I thought would look neat in the thick fog that was still hanging around. That place was Ft. Chaffee, which is still used by the Arkansas National Guard but was once a large army base. It was established just before the start of World War II as a training facility for soldiers and also as a POW camp, housing about 3,000 German soldiers. In 1958, the fort was the temporary home of Elvis Presley, who had his first army haircut there.

The main part of the base that you would always see from the road was the huge number of army barracks - you'd pass by rows and rows of old barracks and buildings while driving toward Fort Smith. In the 1990's, the government gave the base to the state, which declared the old barracks and land to be excess property. They had been sitting empty since World War II, used occasionally as processing centers for Korean and Cuban refugees. The old buildings were also used as the backdrop for the movie Biloxi Blues, which was filmed there.


All of the old buildings are slated to be demolished, but that has been delayed since they contain asbestos and lead paint. The land they sit on is now a redevelopment district, with a proposed freeway near the old base. A large fire last year destoyed a lot of the old buildings, about 150, and is thought to have been caused by high winds knocking down a power line. The high winds carried the flames from building to building, and now all that remains of them are brick chimneys. Luckily, the building where Elvis got his haircut did survive the flames, but a good number of the old barracks are gone.

With the desire to develop this land for commercial purposes, the future of the rest of the base is in doubt. I'd love to see the state step in and preserve some of the buildings as some sort of museum, preserving just a bit of what remains. It'd be a shame to lose these great historical buildings so they can only be replaced with strip malls and gas stations in the name of "progess."

But anyways, the fog that morning was still thick, which gave the ghostly ruins of the burned and still-standing buildings an eerie look. The overgrown grass had a sheen of frost on them. Looking at the charred chimneys and old buildings, it felt more like I was taking pictures of Dresden during World War II or Atlanta after the Civil War instead of an old army base in Arkansas.
















The old buildings that still stand are fenced off with signs saying something like "hazardous material, do not enter." I was tempted to jump the fence to get some pictures inside the buildings, but thought I could get in trouble for it, since it's still next to an army area.






These were taken at the edge of the base, near some buildings that had been rennovated and converted to commercial use. They housed a few random buisnesses, like a pest control company and even a massage place. As I was out there taking pictures, a large dog let it be known that it did not like me being there. It barked loudly and started to get walk closer. But as it got close, it decided I wasn't a threat and that I was its new best friend. It tried to jump up and lick my face. After that it stood nearby on guard duty, wagging his tail and happy to next to a new friend who would tell him it was a "good dog" and pat it on the back.






The cold icy weather left some frost on all the plants out there. This tree branch was covered in frost.


The ruins of Fort Chaffee still stand, but who knows for how much longer. I hope that the remaining buildings here will be preserved somehow. It is a shame that we allow so many of our historic buildings to be torn down and destroyed, only to replaced with parking lots and empty fields. The soldiers and heroes who lived and trained here deserve better than that.

Singleton Family Cemetery

I was in Charleston a few days ago visiting family, just a few days after the big ice storm passed through. This area wasn't hit as hard as the northern part of the state, and most of the ice had already melted away. It was a cold morning, and the views outside were hidden behind a thick shroud of fog. Since I was awake I grabbed the camera and headed out to take pictures at the Singleton Family Cemetery.


The cemetery is actually maintained by my family, and is the final resting place for many generations of relatives. Since it's maintained by us, I did my part that morning by carrying away some branches that had fallen during the ice storm. There was a coating of frost along the ground and in the trees, with the thick fog still lingering.


The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places a few years ago because some of the people buried here were important to the development of this part of the state. Also, the oldest graves are surrounded by low limestone walls, a type of funerary architecture that is rare in this part of the country.


The cemetery is surrounded by pasture land, and the barbed wire fence was covered in a tiny bit of ice and frost.

A cold Collins Creek

Magness Lake is located just outside of Heber Springs. Also conveniently close to Heber Springs is the great Collins Creek, so I headed there after I left the swans. It had been pretty cold the last few days, and temperatures that day were probably right at or below freezing. I hoped that the cold would produce some cool icicles at the waterfalls along Collins Creek...

I got to the creek and found no icicles hanging down from the waterfall. Crap! Well it's a pretty place anyways so I started taking pictures.




I did manage to notice a tiny bit of ice, hanging down from a tree branch (or root?) above the creek. I made it to the other side of the creek and crawled around on the rocks enough where I could get a good picture of the small icicles.






Some more ice had formed around the area where the pipe from Greers Ferry Lake empties into the creek bed. I wonder why ice forms in some places, but not in others?


I really liked how this one turned out, but I realized later that I've taken a picture from this spot a few times before. Oh well...


And a shot of a rock, resting in the cold waters of the creek:


And one more view of some ice, which is nice but not what I was expecting when I drove up there:


It had started to rain as I was taking the above picture. At first I was more concerned with keeping the camera dry and then it hit me - perhaps rain and temperatures at or below freezing means this isn't a good time to linger around. I hurried back to the car and started driving home. I wasn't sure if it had indeed gotten below freezing, but there were a few icy patches on the road. My car slid a bit while going over a bridge, but otherwise things went ok. I fared better than a few others, I drove by four wrecks just on the road from Heber Springs to Greenbriar. One car had gone off the road and flipped over, another slid off and hit some trees. I usually try to drive slow on that road (after getting a speeding ticket there last year), but went even slower that day. The roads seemed to get better as I got closer to Conway, and I made it home safe and sound. In fact I even made a stop at the store to buy the traditional milk and bread before the dreaded ice storm hit.

Magness Lake

A major ice storm was predicted to hit here this week, so I thought I'd get out on Monday before the weather got too nasty. The weather people were predicting that the northern parts of the state would see ice, but it would be awhile before it would reach us here in central Arkansas. As I drove northwards, the radio said the current temperature in Little Rock was 34 degrees. But different signs that showed temperatures could never agree - one said 31, the other 26. My plan was to drive up there and take pictures and leave well before it got cold enough for the roads to get icy.

My first stop was at Magness Lake, which is the home of a large flock of trumpeter swans. These birds are the largest waterfowl species native to North America, and were nearly hunted to extinction in the last century. Since then they made a nice comeback, but it is rare to see them around here. Normally, they don't migrate this far south in the winter. But in 1990, three swans settled down on this lake near the Little Red River. It is thought that a storm knocked them off course and they ended up settling down at Magness Lake. Since then the swans have returned over the years, with as many as 150 swans counted there.

Since then a pair of trumpeter swans wintered at a small pond in the Boxley Valley of the Buffalo National River. The state tried to establish a few more swans here, putting a few more at Boxley and at Holla Bend last year. I saw a few swans at Holla Bend last week that might have been part of the program.

But at Magness Lake you can get a nice up close view of the birds. It's illegal to hunt swans in Arkansas, so they don't mind getting too close to people at the lake.






Magness Lake is located about 50 miles north of Little Rock, and is just east of the city of Heber Springs. You can drive and park right at the edge of the lake, so it is very easy to reach. The birds there are very photogenic, and will try to show off their best side to any visiting photographer:


Luckily the owners of the land look like they're working to help protect the area to help make it a nice habitat for the visiting swans.


And one last shot, which I guess will be the end of this post: