George O’Connor

This weather report is from the November 18, 1971 edition of the Eureka Springs Times-Echo.

Eureka Springs Arkansas weather station

George O’Connor maintained and operated the Eureka Springs, Arkansas weather station for several years. Located behind O’Connor’s Texaco, he recorded weather data for the National Weather Service and various media outlets. Patricia Williams Cobb is George O’Connor’s granddaughter and has this memory:

I remember his little white weather station out behind the gas station.  He would also call his weather report into — not only the paper, but the radio and the t.v. station every night.  I remember the excitement one time, when the t.v. weatherman said during the broadcast, “George O’Connor says it is __ degrees in Eureka Springs.”  I thought my grandfather was a celebrity!

A well-known fixture in Eureka Springs for six decades, George Paul O’Connor was born in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania and grew up there and in North Dakota. Following work in the 1920’s, he and a friend made their way to Eureka Springs where George settled down and married Norma Fioravanti. With a keen, active mind, George was staunchly independent and opinionated. Besides opening the Texaco Service Station, he served as a Justice of the Peace on the Carroll County Quorum Court and was a highly skilled carpenter.

Jack McCall told the story of being at O’Connor’s Texaco one day looking at George’s car, a Ford Ltd. Jack asked, “George what does L T D stand for?”

Without missing a beat, George said, “Little Tom Dooley.”

O’Connor’s Texaco is now the location of Sparky’s Roadhouse Cafe.