Little is known of Parnell Springs until 1857 when William Green applied for and obtained a land patent from President Buchanan for the tract of land from which Parnell Springs emerges. Over the next thirty years the property would change hands several times as the tract was subdivided, sold and resold. There were even times when the springs were under the ownership of several landowners simultanesouly – a common form of collective ownership for many watering holes in the 1800s. It wasn’t until the March of 1881 that the springs and much of the adjoining lands were brought under the ownership of Joseph Marion Parnell who, at age of thirty-two, moved to the springs and married Sarah J. Bryant Moseley, the widow of Henderson Moseley. Several years earlier Parnell had erected a log house on a single acre of land he had purchased from Sarah’s father and had increased his holdings until he owned an entire half section adjoining Parnell Springs.

Parnell built a store, the first in the community, and log house across the road from some springs and the local watering hole. Promoting the medicinal value of the enriched water emerging from the springs, Parnell developed the springs naming them Parnell Springs. After sending water samples to a state chemist, he tapped and piped three separate veins of water and labeled them magnesium, iron, and sulphur. He then constructed a concrete pool, a white-washed subterrestrial basin with bench seating, to aid individuals in getting access to the water.





























The water from the springs was used for both drinking and bathing and was offered free to all who came to visit. The springs gained their most renown for their sulfurous small and chemistry. In the summer when the ticks, chigger and mosquitoes were abundant, children, would douse themselves in the sulfur water to ward off these unwanted pests as it was better to stink than be biten. When drank the water was useful in relieving stomach ailments and when used for bathing could help improve one’s skin. Parnell Springs was especially fashionable during the hot summer months when cholera struck more populated communities closer to the Saline and other nearby rivers – places where travelers carrying the disease are more apt to visit. For invalids and health seekers who were physically unable to make the trek to the springs Parnell also ran a bottling company. Upon taking one’s order, Parnell would bottle the water in five gallon containers, haul it by wagon to nearby Warren by crossing Franklin Creek on Burk's Ferry and then ship it by rail to its final destination.

Parnell Springs had always been a popular watering hole but with Parnell’s promotion the springs became increasingly popular as a meeting place for friends, especially on Sunday afternoons and during the Methodist camp meetings that were held there at the end of summer after the crops were harvested. Parnell sold three lots each fifty feet wide by one hundred and fifty feet deep to Elizabeth Walker, S.A. Duke, and Dr. T.S. Moore, who built and maintained family cottages near the springs for many years. The Parnell family home – a simple log cabin -- quickly became busy with visitors wanting food and lodging and their home became “the hotel”. Rarely was a guest turned away and during the summer malaria season, Sarah Parnell, Joseph's wife, found herself overworked as she accommodated the guests -- preparing three meals a day for boarders -- while raising a family.

Due to the overwhelming hours and work, Joseph sold the bulk of his property at Parnell Springs to Mr. W.L. Kennedy in December of 1888. Use of the water from Parnell Springs was transferred by deed only to those who owned a portion of the adjoining land and then only for their personal home usage. Kennedy added on to both ends of the original Parnell log home to accommodate more guests, renaming it the Kennedy Hotel, and made improvements to the grounds surrounding the springs. He also built a separate dining room for guests which during busiest summer weekends was filled to capacity from morning to night. Albeit over 1000 guests passed through Parnell Springs the following year the business was seasonal and the season was short; after five years of hard round-the-clock labor financial difficulties stalled Kennedy’s progress. Overwhelmed by debt during the Panic of 1893 he sold the springs to Robert Wells and his son Robert T. Wells, except for the three lots owned by the Walker, Duke, and Moore families.

Determined to enshrine Parnell Springs as a resort of substance Wells tore down the original log hotel and in its place he built the Wells Hotel, a far more substantial and vastly improved enterprise. He also enlarged the dining room built by Mr. Kennedy and updated the kitchen. On the east and west sides from both hills, Wells built concrete stairs leading to the springs and taking advantage of the two hills and valley with the springs in the middle he built a pavilion overlooking the grounds which were beautifully groomed. Behind the springs a dance floor was built where a dance was held every Friday night -- later every Saturday night too -- during the summer. The dance pavilion had a screen around it with a round roof so the visitors could dance without being bothered by mosquitoes or rain. A boardwalk two foot wide was constructed over the small valley to provide a dry walkway and easy access to the pavilion and springs below which were retiled in bricks and covered by a separate pavilion.

As planned Parnell Springs became a favored resort and hotel with large groups gathering during the summer as dances, reunions, and other religious and community functions carrier the resort through the “slow season”. By the turn of the twentieth century, the resort—with its hotel, cabins, and the pavilions—was a well established watering hole with many visitors staying for several weeks or months at a time either to live in the hotel or cottages, or just to be near the springs. During hot summer Sunday afternoons long line of buggies would gather at Parnell Springs and the concrete pool sheltering the springs was always shady and cool and a popular place for conversation. There was a little seat or platform around the inside edge of the pool where people sat while drinking and bathing in the water. All the excess water went out a drain which provided a constant flow of fresh water to a small gold fish pond eight to ten feet out from the springs before running out into the branch and across the road into a nearby pond. The children often ate lunch and played pitch while sitting on the concrete steps leading to and from the springs and the benches and boardwalks around the park created a family-friendly recreational atmosphere. To keep patrons abreast of the news Wells would send a porter on horseback each day to a post office in Orlando to retrieve the mail. He would later petition the U.S. Postal Service for permission to establish a post office at Parnell Springs, the Starasta Post Office, but these efforts fell through.

Each year the Methodist Episcopal Church in Warren held a brush arbor meeting at Parnell Springs. The annual meeting often attracted over 1,000 people who would come by wagon, buggy and horse to camp in tents and make-shift structures at the springs. The Methodist Camp meeting area was located opposite the hotel across the road and closer to the springs and families slept and cooked on the grounds as young and old drank and bathed in the waters of Parnell Springs. The large brush arbor or camp meeting shed had split log pews and everybody carried a quilt to cover the rough log seats. The sides were framed with rough logs which served to scaffold small fires built on sheeted platforms so everyone could see at night. The pulpit was elevated so all could view the preacher and on it there was a small oil lamp which provided light for the minister to read.

Denomination didn’t matter and all were invited. People with various beliefs came from miles away in wagons, buggies, and on horseback to worship at the old camp meeting at Parnell Springs. The older men sat on the left side of the church, women on the right with young people in the middle, so they could be supervised by the adults. Each evening at twilight the women and men would hold separate prayer and testimony meetings under nearby trees but young couples would still find ample opportunity to mingle and meet new interests. On July 27, 1898 – five years after taking ownership of the springs and surrounding area -- Wells granted a deed to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in Warren for the four acres of land that included the springs and camp meeting shed. For the next five years Parnell Springs served as the location for the annual state conference of the Methodists.

By the early 1900s, Parnell Springs had become part of a thriving community – in addition to the hotel and its dining rooms and the cottages surrounding the springs there were also stables for the horses and carriages, a restaurant, a sawmill, two cotton gins, a boarding house, two stores, grist and corn mills, a blacksmith shop, a post office, two schools, and a barbershop. Dr. J. S. Dunn and his family moved to Parnell Springs with the expectation it would become a first-class summer resort. (Daily Arkansas Gazette, 1903) By all appearances Parnell Springs was a growing enterprise when Wells sold his interests to J.A. Smith, a Missouri Pacific Railroad conductor living in nearby Warren.

Smith turned the hotel into an opulent retreat and renamed the hotel after his daughter Edna. He added on a second story and enlarged the dining room – it was an expansive 24 x 64 feet and decorated in the latest style wall paper and fresco ceiling and equipped with refrigerator, buffet and the finest silver and china available. In addition to the seventeen beautiful bedrooms in the hotel there was also seven stark white cottages of four rooms each and each room entirely different in figure, shade and form and equipped with indoor water furnished by the spring. On the grounds one would find a bowling alley, swings, lawn tennis, croquet and trails meandering among the beautiful natural grove that surrounded the springs. The main building, cotttages and grounds were lighted at night by acetylene lights. Plans were in place to build a modern bathhouse with a barber shop for the gentlemen. Warren worked in Warren was able to operate the Edna Hotel for several years thanks to having a famed trotting mare who made it from the Springs to the Missouri Pacific depot at Warren in record time each morning.























J.A. Smith had purchased all water rights to the springs except those previously sold to Walker, Duke, and Moore and built a water tower holding 8,000 gallons of water from the springs. The health-giving water was now piped directly from the springs to each room of the hotel and a fire hose was available which maintained enough water pressure to shoot a stream across the two-story hotel. Smith promoted the resort proclaiming it to have the “best combination of mineral waters in the South” and the “cleanest hotel in the state”. Perhaps he was right; however, he had spent heavily on perfecting service and accomodations for his guests and the bottling and distribution of the water had low profit margins, if any. In a desperate move to raise funds to support Parnell Springs, Smith built a high fence around the springs and levied a fifty cents per drink fee. He also raised the hotel prices to an enormous rate – some say as much as 300 percent higher! These desparate moves assured the ruin of the once thriving resort and in 1906 the Southern Lumber Company of Warren took control of Parnell Springs in payment for mortgages which they held.

The Southern Lumber Company operated Parnell Springs with limited success for the next twenty years as people continued to frequent the resort on vacations and during special gatherings. In 1909 the citizens of the community proposed that Parnell Springs be considered for the location of the state hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis but it was found “that the buildings are hardly capable of being turned into practical use in the establishment of the hospital” (Arkansas Democrat, 1909). In 1912 J.A. Watkins of Warren offered a lease on the springs, hotel, cottages, water works orchard and 50 acres (Daily Arkansas Gazette, 1912) but little interest was shown and investment and development ceased with the Great Depression. After World War II families began to move toward towns and Parnell Springs was gradually forgotten and then neglected. Finally, the winds came and blew down the water tower and the cottages and pavilions collapsed with age. Water and dirt filled the concrete pavilion while undergrowth covered the park. At last, all that remained was the hotel itself. Finally, it too was torn down, the lumber used in building several nearby homes and the waste burned on site.

More recently the Carter-Jones Timber Company in Warren held title to the land where the springs are located. For many years those still living near Parnell Springs would often have their children clean the leaves and debris from the concrete pavilion encasing the three springs, but today there are few children and the basin is partially filled with mud and debris. The springs are lost as water flow is negligible due to erosion, depressed groundwater reserves and conduit impediments. The watering hole that once offered healing waters to thousands of patrons is no more in use.