Sweet Spring is on Spring street around the corner from the post office. Its original position was in the hollow about two hundred yards below its present site. When Spring Street was laid out by Powell Clayton and other city officials in the early eighties, the stream of water was tapped and a stone pit erected with steps leading down to the fountain. The spring itself was imprisoned in stone for sanitary reasons. No one seems to know the origin of the name Sweet for this spring. Benches beneath the hard maple and ginkgo trees surround this spring and it is a cool spot for summer loafing.
In the early days, Harding Spring ranked next to Basin in importance. It has supplied the Palace Bath House with water for bathing for almost a half a century. It flows from a picturesque cliff on Spring Street with a rock projection called Lover’s Leap a few feet away. It is one of the most photographed spots in Eureka Springs.
Congress Spring at the rear of the Congress Spring apartments is “honey out of the rock” for those who like top quality aqua pura. It comes from a cave and is said to have been discovered by workmen while blasting rock on Spring Street. Standing at the spring one may look skyward and observe a street seventy feet directly above. The rock formation at this point is a miniature Gibraltar.
Crescent Spring, between the Carnegie Library and Presbyterian Church, derived its name from the large crescent-shaped ledge of rocks over which it originally flowed for a distance of fifteen feet. It is now walled in stone and sheltered with a pointed roofed pagoda.
Continuing on Spring Street, Grotto Spring “on the boulevard” is next. It has a picturesque position in the mountain side, fronted with a lane of sycamore trees. The spring was named because of its location in a natural stone grotto.
On East Mountain there is water almost everywhere. Some of the best known springs, each with its individual scenic setting, are: Cave, Little Saucer, Big Saucer, Little Eureka, Onyx, Carry Nation, Soldier and Cold. Cave spring, near the home of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Ward Dresbach, flows a stream of pure cold water from a narrow cave. Little Eureka has a small stream and never goes dry. This spring is known for the purity of its waters (5½ grains of solids to the gallon) and many people swear by it. It is said that Little Eureka water won second place in a world wide contest at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Water from a spring in Switzerland won first.