This delightful summer resort situated in the vale of Butler Creek possesses several healing springs. The valley was first settled by Zebulon Murphy Whinery and his wife Sarah in 1845. Upon Zebulon’s arrival there were already a few crude encampments near the springs and evidence of Native American occupancy; but otherwise, there was little to suggest that the springs would come to be the centerpiece of a prosperous resort. Zebulon built a log cabin near a small lake which graced the floor of the valley and settled in to watch the valley fill with small businesses, farmers and health seekers. The town of Sulphur Springs would be platted and Zebulon was deeded Lot 1, Block 5 by President Franklin Pierce in 1855. Sadly, all development that had come to the valley prior to 1860 was wiped out in the Civil War and recovery would be slow. When Mr. Grammer built a small store at Sulphur Springs in 1871 he commented that there were only "a few old cabins for the accommodation of health seekers” and livestock still had open access to the springs and the adjoining grounds. A blacksmith shop, livery and stables, church and post office would follow but little effort was given to protecting and promoting the springs for their medicinal properties. This would change with the arrival in 1884 of William Hibler and his son Charles H. Hibler a merchandiser from Joplin, Missouri. Visiting Sulphur Springs for the first time the Hiblers fell in love with the countryside and the springs. There were several different springs whose waters possessed medicinal properties --white sulphur, potash sulfur, magnesia, chalybeate, nitre/lithia and intermittent freestone -- all within a short stroll from one another. With aspirations to develop the property into a health resort, Charles persuaded his father to buy Zebulon’s 40 acres of land containing the natural lake and springs. It was through Hibler’s perserverance and endurance that Sulphur Springs would attain a high ranking as one of the Arkansas’ most preeminent health resorts in the late 1800s. Hibler hired a surveyor and a new town was laid out with B.F. Cox owning ½ interest. The streets were sixty feet wide to accommodate roads and sidewalks; Grand Avenue was 101 feet wide. Eleven acres were set aside for use as a spring reserve and park with a delightful promenade and a beautifully ornamented picnic area shaded by natural forest. The springs were tiled and improved for patrons and the shallow lake drained and dam built to create a pool more suitable for swimming and boating. The new impoundment had two islands on which Hibler erected a tabernacle, a large skating pavilion, dance hall, boat house and roller rink. Footbridges were built to allow visitors passage to the islands to enjoy their entertainments while other foot paths traced their way through the picnic grounds where benches and arbors offered rest and solitude. In the park there was also a baseball field, tennis grounds and a large tract of land open to families who would simply fill up a wagon with a week’s worth of food and come to the park to camp – it was a wonderful place for children to run and play while the adults mingled and refreshed themselves.





























All that was lacking was a railroad to connect Sulphur Springs with the world outside – and here again Hibler proved most persuasive. Without going into the many entanglements incident to the building of the railroad in which Hibler found himself: for a third interest in the townsite the Kansas City, Fort Smith, and Southern railroad agreed to run a rail line down to Sulphur Springs, changing a route they had already adopted. The railroad now had a vested interest in the resort’s success and were all aboard with Hibler’s dream to develop Sulphur Springs as a health resort. Sulphur Springs would be the end-of-line for the railroad -- a railroad Y in the tracks just north of town, permitted locomotives to turn around – when the first train rode the rails into town in 1891. The railroad heavily promoted Sulphur Springs as a destination resort and offered excursion trips between Kansas City and Sulphur Springs for the round trip price of one dollar. One of the largest excursion trips arose when the "railway men" and a crowd of over 1200 strong came down from Pittsburgh, Kansas for a day of dancing, boating, bathing, and baseball soon after the line opened.



















Sulphur Springs was a busy place catering to as many as 3000 visitors on any given summer weekend. Four daily passenger trains brought loads of visitors to Sulphur Springs – some for healing, some for entertainment, some for both -- and once off the train they were bombarded by hawkers and land agents selling “choice lots” and farmsteads. By the early 1890s hundreds of thousands of dollars of northern capital were invested in building elaborate hotels and bathhouses to accommodate visitors and beautiful and substantial residences for whom Sulphur Springs was home. Charles Hibler and his wife owned and operated one of the larger hotels, the Park Hotel, a nearby bathhouse and several cottages. They also owned a dry goods store and most of the commercial buildings on Hibler Block. In addition to the Park Hotel there were several other hotels – the Livingston, the Joplin House, Windsor Hotel, the Ozark Hotel – as well as many smaller boarding houses, some reserved solely for disabled patients. The railroad eating house fronting the depot, renowned for its delicious and inexpensive fare, was always busy and was one of many restaurants suited to visitors. In the city center lying west of the park there were many businesses including a bank, hardware store, meat market, funeral parlor, opera house and ice cream parlor. Surreys and buggies lined the streets waiting to assist pleasure seekers and there was a miniature train in the park to carry visitors across a trestle to the islands in the lake to partake of the pleasures offered by the Sulphur Springs Amusement Company: bowling, billards, skating, bathing, merry-go-round and moving picture shows. A dozen saloons and gambling houses scattered about town offered further liberation to Sulphur Springs’ many visitors. Some claim that the Sulphur Springs’ fame peaked in May 1, 1909 when the Sulphur Springs Sanitarium Hotel and Bath Company opened the Kihlberg Hotel. The hotel, constructed of native limestone and five stories high, was named for Oscar Kihlberg, a city promoter, investor and a “big, happy, Swede” who had attained considerable notoriety at Excelsior Springs in Missouri and whose name was synonymous with first-class bathing and the art of Swedish massage. The Kilhberg was by far the biggest hotel in northwest Arkansas when it opened with 100 guest rooms, a towering rotunda, an elevator, a large ballroom and baths located in the basement floor. A special train arrived crowded with special guests, hairdressers, and boxes of lovely flowers for the opening of the Kihlberg Hotel, and dignitaries gave speeches while women sauntered under the shade of parasols.

























Despite all the gala and optimism the opening of the Kilhberg did not represent forward momentum in Sulphur Springs’ development. Although able to house hundreds of guests, the Kihlberg had overestimated the growth of the market; and, as vacancies became increasingly common some of the smaller bed and breakfasts and boarding houses could not compete. Moreover, the Kansas City Southern Railway was promoting Sulphur Springs to working-class lead and coal miners from Joplin and ore fields to the north with $1 dollar round-trip fares. These laborers were looking for a healthy vacation on the cheap, while the Kihlberg Hotel was built with an upper-class clientele in mind. Oscar Kilhberg and his wife did not stay long – within two years they had moved on to opening the Kihlberg Swedish Bath & Massage Company in San Antonio, Texas in 1911. Kilhberg’s departure was a disappointment, but it was an arsonist that brought the resort to its knees. Tis ironic that with a lake, creek and health giving springs all lying so close that Sulphur Springs never invested in a municipal water company and thus lacked the resources to fight even a small household fire. In the first of a series of suspicious fires, fire destroyed the Oak Lawn Inn in 1911. A few weeks later the city’s vulnerability was further revealed when a fire destroyed many businesses on Hibler Street including Hibler's management and finance offices, the Bank of Sulphur Springs, the telephone exchange, and several other stores. But no fire was worse than that of December 1, 1912 which engulfed the Sulphur Springs Electric Light Company and cast the city into darkness. With the hotels, restaurants, movie theater and all attractions closed, tourism came to an end but for a few die-hard devotees – the sickest of the sick -- and the railroad ceased all further excursions to Sulphur Springs. Without electricity Sulphur Springs could not compete with other resorts – in fact, its very survival was at risk. This time the city took no pause in creating an improvement district and selling bonds – chiefly to Mexican investors -- for a municipal water and light company. Electric service resumed in 1914 but the two years of darkness was hard on Sulphur Springs. The Kihlberg Hotel re-opened under the ownership of E.A. Hutchins of San Antonio who in purchasing the hotel, did a complete renovation with new elevator, furniture, plumbing, and electric light and water connections. With electricity restored, businesses again prospered, a second bath house was built, and railroad excursions carrying hundreds of visitors returned to Sulphur Springs.

The influx of visitors and new residents paid off the bonds and brought new investment and improvements to Sulphur Springs; but alas, Sulphur Springs’ popularity as a watering hole was rapidly waning. The automobile was replacing the train as a means to travel, pills and elixirs were replacing water cures, a drought was decimating the landscape and Prohibition had closed down many of Sulphur Springs’ businesses and entertainments. Sulphur Springs accommodated itself to these new realities by evolving into a community of summer homes suitable for highland escapes. In 1921, W. R. Eaton from Shreveport organized the Ozark Colony Association, a planned community, with the dream of inducing home seekers to build homes and gardens on the ridge overlooking Sulphur Springs to the north. Another escapee, Mr. Prickett, General Manager of Long Bell Lumber Company of Kansas City, built a phenomenal summer home - the Wee Pine Knot -- with unpeeled log and wood shingle wall coverings, stacked rock porch piers, and French doors opening to the city. The home is listed in the National Register of Historical Places as being representative of Sulphur Springs' halcyon days as a thriving resort town.



















In 1924 John Brown, a prominent evangelist, publisher, educator and radio pioneer purchased a large portion of Sulphur Springs with the intent to createbuild a college where the daily lives of its students could be sheltered from bad influences. Five years earlier Brown had converted his farm in nearby Siloam Springs to a center of higher education for those who could not otherwise afford to go to college; now in Sulphur Springs he hoped to build a college more aligned to the service of his wealthier donors. In this pursuit he spared little expense. Brown purchased the Kihlberg Hotel, Livingston Hotel, Miller Hotel and the Spring Reserve for his school and had a large three-story home with large windows and open verandahs over-looking the valley built for himself and his family. A school was installed in the old Kilhberg Hotel which was a considerable undertaking as a fire had done extensive damage to the building in 1917. Brown reopened the hotel in June 1925 placing its management – and that of the Livingston Hotel and the tent city located in the park – under a separate company.

The hotels and tent city were opened from June 20 to September 10 and gave visitors and patrons access to the springs, the college and its students; however, John Brown had abolished town dances, jazz music and all mixed bathing in the city park. Community adherence to Brown’s codes of conduct curtailed leisure and enjoyment and many tourists now endowed by the mobility afforded by cars sought out other entertainment venues. Moreover the college wasn’t faring well and wasn’t able to attain full acrediation; the following year the college closed and was then reincarnated as a junior college for women, then a health center, then a grade school and eventually in 1937 as a coeducational military academy, Camp Buddy. Tragedy struck in 1940 when fire gutted the Kilhberg Hotel – the hotel would be rebuilt in 1947 but shortened to two stories. In 1951 Brown sold his operations at Sulphur Springs to Wycliffe Bible Translators at a tremendous sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Sulphur Springs was fading rapidly as resort destination. In 1926 U.S. Highway 71 cut right through the heart of the city park wiping out the golf course. The 1930s saw the destruction of several of the city’s elegant hotels and bathhouses in town and one of the most preeminent healing springs of them all, Lithia Springs, went dry when nearby road improvements sealed its underground conduits. A few remnants of the resort persisted into the 1950s when the last bathhouse closed, railroad service ceased and the dam in the park washed out. In 1956 John Brown University put the Spring Reserve up for sale. The springs were rescued when Mr. Aubrey Johnson, a Sulphur Springs resident purchased the Reserve and entered into a buy-back agreement with the city. Mrs. Minnie Williams contributed further land to the Reserve. In 1976 the dam was rebuilt and the lake returned to the valley, minus any islands or footbridges.

Sulphur Springs is no longer a bustling resort but its charm and natural beauty are a continued source of inspiration. In 1959 the famous Rev. Billy Graham was in Sulphur Springs to attend Wycliffe’s bicentennial conference. In 1968 the Shiloh Trust, a non-denominational Christian ministry, purchased the Kihlberg Hotel complex from Wycliffe Bible Translators and relocated their operations to Sulphur Springs. Sulphur Springs is also the site of the Ozark Theosophical Camp and Education Center dedicated to preserving the ageless wisdom which embodies human self-transformation.

There is something special in this quiet vale of Butler Creek and it seems to have arisen from its healing springs. Many health seekers found relief from their ailments and diseases while drinking and bathing in the mineral springs offered at Sulphur Springs. Some of the testimonials sound incredulous: tumors miraculously disappearing, paraplegics casting aside their wheelchairs, and sight restored to the blind. The natural healing offered by the springs was an enticing lure catching the attention of a lot of coal, zinc and lead miners in Kansas and Missouri who had developed respiratory ailments. Thousands of patients were dispatched annually to Sulphur Springs for arthritis and respiratory treatment and they generally returned home healthier, stronger and more productive.

The valley of Butler Creek in which Sulphur Spring lies is deeply cut to the Silurian magnesian limestones and quartzose sandstones that underlie the Boone chert covering the hillsides. Water arising from these Silurian deposits contains sulphuretted hydrogen in various proportions and large quantities of magnesium carbonate and carbonic acid. An early USGS survey reports the water (presumed to have been collected from White Sulphur Springs) as having "valuable antacid and tonic properties”.

Several springs and seeps emerge in the valley and others that may lie under Lake Ballantine. Initially there were only two springs of medicinal importance -- a White Sulfur Spring in the Park Reserve proper and a "Limestone" spring (later called Nitre and then Lithia) lying across the Butler Creek to the north. However when Hibler drained the lake in the 1890s other mineral springs emerged and they too were found to possess healing properties. These springs – the Black Sulphur (Potash), Magnesia, Chalybeate and an intermittent Freestone spring – had distinct chemical and prescriptive properties providing health seekers visiting Sulphur Springs with a variety of treatment alternatives. Collectively these mineral springs produced nearly 700,000 gallons per day, sufficient to serve the needs of 10,000 people.

Several of the more important springs were neatly boxed in and covered by pavilions. Four of the springs lying within the existing Spring Reserve were tiled and equipped with a city-owned hand pump and provided with a submerged drainage system that feed a landscaped lily pond. Dr. A.R. Bils was responsible for many of the improvements, the dam, the stone walls, and the lily pond and he built a small bathhouse located near the medicinal springs which he employed in the treatment of his patients. In the park was the noted White Sulphur spring whose water had cured many ailments and which was prescribed for liver problems. A few steps further was found the Alkaline Magnesia spring which was prescribed for stomach and intestinal conditions. The Black Sulphur spring was prescribed for fever associated with chronic malaria; for those unable to travel water from Black Sulphur Springs was also bottled and distributed by rail. The Chalybeate Spring, whose hand pump was destroyed years ago, was prescribed for anemia and tired blood. The magnesia, white sulfur and black sulfur lie within an open courtyard. Initially the springs were covered by a shelters with pyramid roofs and enclosed with trellis work however in the 1920s to 30s the slender corner posts supporting the pyramidal composition shingle roofs were replaced by the limestone piers that remain today. The Magnesian and White Sulfur Springs have been capped but the Black Sulfur Spring water can still be obtained from a metal hand pump.

Located to the north end of the park across Butler Creek was the renowned Lithia Spring – once claimed to be the largest lithium spring in the world. Lithium is used to soothe the nerves, and many people for years filled their jugs with this water and carried it home for their drinking water and would not use any other. This spring flows from a small cave opening in the limestone bluffs. The Lithia Springs shelter consist of a gable roof with vertical boards in the pediment atop for limestone piers. Handcrafted limestone benches on either side the spring were carved out of the bluff in 1889 soon after the establishment of the Park. Water from Lithia Springs was held in such regard it was bottled and shipped in 5 gallon jugs via the Kansas City Southern Railroad to points all over the nation. An early picture of the Sulphur Springs Mineral Water bottling works depicts a rather large two story brick building that bottled and shipped thousands of gallons of Lithia Spring water until the spring ran dry. Today Lithis Spring runs only after periods of heavy rain and no longer is assumed to possess any medicinal properties; however, it is claimed that at the time of the Alaskan earthquake in 1964 that the Lithia Spring water became milky proving a long-held claim that its waters once originated from a deep lithium-rich underground water source.