What to See in Eureka Springs - Top Sights and Attractions

Park in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Lake Leatherwood Park is a municipal park on the north side of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The park covers 1,600 acres, and its centerpiece is Lake Leatherwood, a 100-acre body of water created by the Lake Leatherwood Dam, which impounds West Leatherwood Creek. The dam, along with roadways, recreational facilities, and other elements of the park, were built in the 1930s by work crews of the Civilian Conservation Corps with funding from the federal government's Soil Conservation Service.

The park is the subject of several listings on the National Register of Historic Places. Those recreational facilities built by the CCC in the 1930s were listed in 1992; the dam was also nominated at that time, but it was never formally listed, and its listing is recorded by the National Park Service as pending. The entire park was listed as a historic district in 1998.^[1]

Chapel in the woods with windows galore. Thorncrown Chapel is a chapel located in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, designed by E. Fay Jones, and constructed in 1980. The design recalls the Prairie School of architecture popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom Jones had apprenticed. The chapel was commissioned by Jim Reed, a retired schoolteacher, who had purchased the land in 1971 and envisioned a non-denominational pilgrimage chapel set apart in the landscape for meditation. The design of Thorncrown Chapel was inspired by the Sainte-Chapelle, a Gothic church in Paris, France, containing many windows and different types of glass to allow more light into the structure.

The chapel was selected for the 2006 Twenty-five Year Award by the American Institute of Architects, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000, a status not granted to buildings fewer than fifty years old unless exceptionally significant. It was included in Budget Travel's list of "12 Most Beautiful Churches in America" and Bored Panda's list of "50 Most Extraordinary Churches Of The World."^[3]

Museum in Carroll County, Arkansas. Quigley's Castle is a historic house museum and garden at 274 Quigley Castle Road, off Arkansas Highway 23 south of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and is one of the most unusual houses in northwestern Arkansas. The house was designed by Elise Quigley and built in 1943 by Albert Quigley and a neighbor, using lumber from the property. The exterior of the house is decorated with the collection of rocks Elise Quigley had accumulated since childhood. The house was specifically designed by Quigley to accommodate a two-story space for tropical plants. Over the years Elise Quigley's gardens expanded to take over much of the property. In 1950 the family began charging admission to tour the home, a practice that continues today.

The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.^[5]

Historical landmark in Carroll County, Arkansas. Blue Spring Heritage Center is a 33-acre privately owned tourist attraction in the Arkansas Heritage Trails System containing native plants and hardwood trees in a setting of woodlands, meadows, and hillsides. It is located at Highway 62 West, five miles west of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and open daily to the public during warmer months for a fee.

The spring pours 38 million US gallons (140,000 m³) of water daily into the trout-filled lagoon. Blue Spring has been a tourist attraction since 1948, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places for its archaeological significance as a site occupied between the Early Archaic and the Mississippian periods.

Historians from several Indian nations, including the Tsalagi (Cherokee), Osage and Quapaw, say their people have been making journeys to, and living intermittently at Blue Spring for tens of thousands of years. Artifacts excavated at the Blue Spring Shelter support this, as they date back to between 8000 B.C. and A.D. 1500.^[6]