Fifty years ago in Eureka Springs (according to the January 2, 1964 edition of the Eureka Springs Times-Echo newspaper), Bye Bye Birdie with Janet Leigh and Dick Van Dyke was playing at the New Basin Theater. The KTHS Radio Program Schedule (“1480 on your dial”) lists that the Dwight Nichols Show started weekdays at 3 p.m. The radio station signed off daily at 5:15 p.m.

In cultural news, rehearsals were announced to begin at the New Orleans Hotel for the Carroll County Players production of The Village, a three-act comedy written by local Michael Mountjoy. The column Library Notes gives a short review of William Golding’s classic Lord of the Flies. Although originally published in 1954, a film version of it had recently been released. K.S. Chyrchel [Remenar] had us read this book during the 1983-1984 school year at Eureka Springs High School and I distinctly remember that Piggy had asthma.

Fifty years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Ross Bowser, of Marysville, Calif., traveled to Eureka Springs to visit Mr. and Mrs. Grover Roark. Alas, the Roarks were not at home as they were in Arizona visiting their daughter.

Mr. and Mrs. Bob Sherman returned home from Omaha.

A front-page article announced that Democratic Congressman Jim Trimble of Berryville would run for reelection, thus ending speculation he would retire because of his health. Had he retired, it was thought that Democratic Governor Orval Faubus would run for the seat. Instead, Trimble was elected to his eleventh and final term in Congress. Also that year, Orval Faubus easily won his final term as Governor. (Interestingly, he garnered 81 percent of the Arkansas black vote.)

The Eureka Locker Plant at 7 Main Street had pork steak for 37 cents per pound. Walker’s Supermarket had ground beef priced at three pounds for a dollar and bananas were ten cents per pound at Clark’s Market.

A short item tells of the Shrader family of Mundell moving to Pea Ridge. This is significant because they were among the very last residents to be relocated so Beaver Lake could begin filling with water.

Meanwhile, over in the old part of the city hospital on the 15th at 1:20 a.m., Dr. Redmond was assisting Erik Weems make his first appearance on this earth. Mother Mary Weems was also present.

The sequence of events that precedes someone becoming a resident of Eureka Springs can take many forms. For Mamie Kincaid it started with an article in the Ford Times magazine that mentioned Eureka Springs.

Mamie and her late husband, Paul, had ordered a new white 1965 Mustang and knew the day it was coming off the assembly line. No one knows what led them to want a Mustang, which was a newly released model by Ford Motor Company. When Paul died in Klamath Falls, Oregon in 1966, Mamie, who hadn’t driven a car since the 1920s, signed up for a two-week driving course to learn to drive her sports car. The 58-year-old widow first moved to Mesa, Arizona, where her sister Kay lived, but then read of Eureka Springs. She and Kay made a trip to visit in the spring of 1969.

The trip must have been a success, because after a phone conversation with her daughter, a house, barn and acreage were purchased on top of Busch hill near Hunt’s log cabin. Mamie with her 1965 Mustang and her sister Kay with her 1957 Chevrolet moved into the home and awaited the arrival of daughter Gail.

In July 1969, Gail arrived with her 1963 Chrysler 300 Pacesetter convertible, three sons, horse and cat. Gail was out on the mountain for two-weeks before she made the trek into town. “What a surprise Eureka was,” she told me. “Not that it was doing much.” A die hard Oregon native, Gail has always had mixed feelings about being in Arkansas. She said her horse disliked it here from the start, not liking the thick brush or the copperhead snakes.

Mamie Kincaid and her family didn’t stay out on the mountain, though, as they all moved into town at different times. Many will remember that white 1965 Mustang parked at 215 Spring Street for many years and it hasn’t left the family as her grandson Scott Schmitz now has it.

Sister Kay took an apartment in Col. King’s house and worked at the Hallmark Shop on Spring Street. What became of her 1957 Chevrolet is not certain.

Gail sold the 1963 Chrysler convertible, but 13 years later was able to buy it back and has now fully restored it. If you keep your eyes open, you’ll see her in it from time to time.

Zelpha Long told this story about sledding in Eureka Springs and said I could repeat it.

“Crescent Grade was sooo much fun! We would sled down, then Donnie Weems had a huge piece of linoleum tied to the back of a Jeep. He would put several kids on the linoleum and drive back up the grade thus slicking and packing the snow again. At the bottom was always a big bonfire built by Donnie or Arlie since they always had access to diesel fuel. You could warm up at the bottom. At that time the city police would block off the top and the bottom for the kids so we could sled. That stopped when the city decided they might get sued. Kids who had no sleds would go down on metal signs, car hoods turned upside down, anything they could get to slide.”

Speaking of Eureka Springs sledding weather, George Nichoalds, who operated the local weather station for more than four decades, recorded an especially interesting stretch of winter weather in January of 1918. During three weeks, 20 inches of snow and ice fell and on the twelfth the temperature dropped to minus 17 Fahrenheit. As far as I can find, that is still the record low temperature for Eureka Springs in modern times.

The other morning here in the hollow, my thermometer recorded a low of minus five° F and that felt plenty cold. My brother-in-law has a friend from Iceland, a man known locally as “The Viking.” The Viking says that once the temperature drops below zero, it all feels the same. Since my experience with sub-zero temperatures is irregular and limited, I’ll defer to him.

By the way, the original Eureka Springs weather station was established April 21, 1902 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau and in 1910 George Nichoalds volunteered to run it. He recorded a lot of weather here, not retiring from the position until 1953. Apparently a person prone to stick with something, George also worked several decades for the Eureka Springs Post Office. Mr. Nichoalds died in 1968 and is buried in the Eureka Springs Cemetery.

George O’Connor maintained and operated the Eureka Springs 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 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 fixture in Eureka Springs for six decades, George Paul O’Connor was born in Marcus Hook, Penn., and grew up there and in North Dakota. Following work in the 1920s, he and a friend made their way south to Eureka Springs where George settled down and married Norma Fioravanti. Norma O’Connor clerked at the Eureka Drug Company for 26 years.

I knew George only after the ravages of Alzheimer’s, but have heard stories of his keen, active mind. Staunchly independent and opinionated, while reading the newspaper or a book (even an encyclopedia), he would underline and make notes in the margin, sometimes vehemently disagreeing with the author’s viewpoint.

For decades he lived just out of the city limits on U.S. 62 (his address was Route 1, Box 2) and when the city of Eureka Springs annexed his land he joined a lawsuit with other landowners. Though they lost the suit on appeal, George O’Connor and what he thought comes shining through when you read the opinion.

Besides opening the Texaco Service Station in 1950, he served as a Justice of the Peace on the Carroll County Quorum Court and was a highly skilled carpenter, known for his steep roofs. 

Jack McCall told the story of loafing 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 long-time location of Sparky’s Roadhouse Café.

Former Eureka Springs resident Vance Randolph mentions in his book, Ozark Magic and Folklore, that in pioneer days most residents of the Ozarks observed Christmas Day on the sixth of January. After the Ozarks fell in line with the rest of America and began celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December, it was called “New Christmas.”

Others persisted in the belief that “Old Christmas” (or the sixth of January) was the true Christmas, but I  think that argument has died out.

Reading the December 29, 1966 edition of the Eureka Springs Times-Echo newspaper, I learned that Eureka Springs had a white Christmas that year. After an eight-inch snow on Dec. 23, the town nearly ground to a halt.

Despite difficult weather conditions, the Eureka Springs Municipal Hospital stayed fully staffed, although one nurse had to walk five miles in the snow to make it to work.

June Moncravie’s column Busch News records that the Busch Store had been without bread for several days because the ABC bread truck had overturned on slick roads. And the Beaver News column by Mrs. Frank Weddington notes that Cobb Gaskins was injured after a fall on the ice.

Of course, there is the usual letter to the editor complaining about city government. Wayne Brashear provided beautiful photographic evidence of the snow.

To my eyes, the land bargain of the week in this issue of the newspaper is 851-acres of land for sale on Highway 62 just ten miles out of town for $25 per acre, or $21,275. Adjusted for inflation, $25 in 1966 is now worth about $180, which would still be a bargain price for that land. Why has the price of real estate gone up at such a rate greater than inflation? Supply and demand, I suppose. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I would tell you what was playing at the movie theater on Spring Street but there is no listing for it in this edition of the Times-Echo. You could have driven to the Main Theatre in Berryville and seen Chuck Connors in Ride Beyond Vengeance or James Garner in A Man Could Get Killed.

The snow falling now is mixed heavily with sleet and when the wind blows it sounds like someone is throwing handfuls of sand at the window. We don’t usually get a lot of winter weather in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, but what we do get can be interesting. Travelling on ice-covered horizontal roads is risky, but to do so on roads striving to be vertical can be treacherous.

When I attended college in the Arkansas River Valley, I finally caught on to how relative one’s view of weather can be. I had just returned from Germany and had become accustomed to the occasional sizeable snow, and Russellville, Arkansas, has a noticeably milder winter than we do here in Carroll County. But one day while crossing the Arkansas Tech University campus in the spitting snow, I heard a Texan say, “When I moved to ATU, I didn’t know I was moving to the Arctic.”

I had an uncle from Mississippi who told me that north Arkansas was the coldest place on earth. And so it goes. Retirees from Omaha, Neb., laugh at our snowfalls, while denizens of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., winter in Nebraska for the pleasant weather. (I read Sault Ste. Marie can receive 17 ft. of lake-effect snow in a single winter.)

So experience obviously colors our expectations. We’ve all heard people complain how a little bit of winter weather shuts down Eureka Springs, but that attitude can backfire, too. I remember a lady being advised on the telephone to postpone an appointment, but she wouldn’t. “I’m from the north,” she declared. The appointment was postponed when she wrecked her car after sliding off the highway. Ice is ice.

When we first lived in the hollow, Sylvia Teague was our neighbor. She was from Malone, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains near the Canadian border, but she didn’t look down her nose at our winters. She said she liked our weather here because it was a challenge without being deadly.

I never sledded in town on Benton Street or Crescent Grade like the stories I’ve heard from others. I’ve even heard about sledding down Howell Avenue in a canoe. Can’t imagine how you could ever stop.

Send your comments and stories to steve@steveweems.com or P.O. Box 43 in Eureka Springs.

In 1929, when the Eureka Springs City Auditorium had its grand opening, my grandfather McKinley Weems was there, but not to see John Philip Sousa or hear the famous Sousa Band. No, young Mac was down in the basement at the pie supper.

Jack McCall, my other grandfather, had his farm on Kings River and always ate the same thing for breakfast: two fried eggs, bacon and toast. Unless, of course, there was pie available, then he had some of that, too. If he only wanted a small piece he’d say, “Cut me a sliver.” If he was especially hungry, he’d say, “Cut me a slab.”

Lola Weems is a master pie maker, with both taste and crust perfect. Betty McCall also made good pies, but she went more for quantity. When the masses descended on holidays, she’d have an epic pie buffet set up on the giant chest freezer. Some of my uncles would race through meals to be the first to the coconut cream pie. So, if accused of liking pie, I can claim the defense that I come by it honestly.

As an aside, one of the most ingenious feats of culinary engineering I am aware of is the Bedfordshire clanger. It is an English pie with the main course of meat and vegetables in one end, and a dessert of fruit or jam in the other. You start at the beginning and work your way through the meal.

With Thanksgiving set to spring upon us, I am thankful for many things, one of which is pie, but also for the emails, letters and phone calls I’ve received with stories, comments and bear sightings. They are much appreciated.

And if you know who has the best pie in town, let me know. I’m serious, I really want to know. Send it to steve@steveweems.com or P.O. Box 43, Eureka Springs, 72632.

I hated to hear of the passing of Richard Kelley, a larger than life character of my childhood. Just recently someone told me that if I wanted to hear stories about Eureka Springs to talk to Richard as he had the best ones. I don’t doubt it.

The first thing I ever wrote that was printed in the newspaper was an obituary for my Great Aunt Vee. I was 15 and Granny said, “You like to write, don’t you?” And so it went. I sat at her kitchen table and formatted the information I collected by looking at obituaries in the Eureka Springs Times-Echo and Berryville Star Progress newspapers. I was rather nervous about writing what seemed to me to be such an important article of information, a summing up of 85 years of life on this earth. But not another word was said about it, no complaints were lodged. I was not accosted before or after the funeral by a distraught mourner accusing me of getting something wrong.

I have been reading obituaries ever since, searching for clues in these concise biographies. Clues for what, I am not always sure. Sometimes I’ll see a family name and I’ll save the obituary for family tree research. It is amazing how interconnected the families in and around Eureka Springs are. If your family has been here awhile, we’re probably related. I saw June Westphal one day and told her I thought we were related. She looked interested. I then said the magic words “Pinkley, Harp and Vaughn” and we had a lot to talk about.

Something Mary Pat Boian and I have in common is that we both admire a well crafted obituary, one that attempts to do justice to the departed. The first time I ever talked to Mary Pat was in the summer of 2000 when my friend W.O. Martin died. I had submitted his obituary to the newspaper and Mary Pat called me and asked several questions about W.O. and his adventures. She then took the information and worked it into a very nice article. I’ve been a fan ever since.

Last week, my nephew Brandon Snodgrass died here in Eureka Springs. He was only 18 years old. I can’t help but think about how small he was in my sister’s arms not long after he was born. Or how the last time I saw him it was just a glimpse of him driving a pickup, turning onto the highway. There wasn’t even time to wave.

At the end of the Cold War, I was a soldier stationed in Germany. The other teenagers in my unit and I would shake our heads at how the details of military life were incorrectly portrayed in movies. Likewise, accountants and Arkansawyers shown on film and television are often clichéd and predictable. I can spot these inaccuracies because I’m a former CPA, I was once in the US Army and I’m from Arkansas.

I write a column, but I’m not a professional newspaper reporter. Journalism has standards and jargon and codes of conduct about which I know little. And my little bit of knowledge is dangerous because it comes from movies and television. But if I learned one thing from watching those Lou Grant episodes during summer vacations in the late ‘70s, it is to always check your facts.

I previously wrote that Richard Banks died in 1973, but his grave marker says otherwise. As I should have done in the first place, I ran out to the Eureka Springs Cemetery and checked his date of death. He died January 23, 1975.

Randy Freeman told me where to find the grave, so it only took a minute to locate it inside the front gate. Richard Banks had worked for the Freeman family for decades and Randy had been at the funeral. In fact, Randy’s grandfather, Ray Freeman, paid for the funeral.

Randy articulated something about Richard Banks that was true for many in Eureka Springs. He said, “He was the first black man I ever saw, and was the only black person I knew for years.”

He also remembered the “huge smile and deep, booming laugh.” This reminded me that McKinley Weems had said something similar. He said that he remembered being in the audience at the movie theater on Spring Street and Richard Banks would be up in the balcony. When he laughed everyone heard it and knew it was Rich.

Randy Freeman also said, “I remember the phone call from my mom telling me Richard had died. He had cancer and had already lost an eye because of it. He worked at the Joy (Motel) right up until the end. I felt like a piece of my childhood had suddenly vanished. Richard was an institution in my life and he was gone.”