Links in a chain

The story of Eureka Springs is retold every generation.

L. J. Kalklosch started the party in 1881 with his rascally “complete history” of the then two-year-old city. In the mid-1900s, Cora Pinkley-Call reverently celebrated the early pioneers. June Westphal followed with a sober seriousness rare among Eurekans.

Susan Schaefer became another link in that chain in 1993 with her first two books, I Didn’t Know That! About Eureka Springs, and I Didn’t Know That Either! About Eureka Springs. Four more followed in a similar breezy style through 2017’s The Crescent Hotel: With Ghost Stories.

I interviewed Susan last week at her home. I’ve started lining up interviews again for the second half of my upcoming book, Welcome to Eureka Springs: The I-Sh*t-You-Not History of America’s Quirkiest Town.

Susan shared stories of Eurekan days gone by and graciously let me browse her decades’ worth of news clippings. She even gave me a copy of her Signs of the Past from Eureka Springs, a fun collection of local print ads from 1881 to 1981.

Each interview feels like one step closer to completion. That’s still a long ways off, but the path is clearer all the time.