Eureka Springs Independent

01/11/2026

Locals gathered today from 11-1 to hold a vigil for Renee Good, and protest the actions of ICE that led to Renee's death.

Photos by Abbey Foster

01/10/2026

~Sponsor Shoutout~

Thank you to all of our sponsors. You make this paper possible.

01/09/2026

Who's ready for Ozark Mountain Music Festival next week?! Good tunes, good vibes, good company.

01/09/2026

Interior Moment in Time for Humanity

Winter and the New Year of 2026. It is a deep interior moment for humanity at this time. At the beginning of another new year. Let us share a few preparatory thoughts. There has been so much apocalyptic rhetoric in the past years. I suggest we turn instead toward a dedicated, more positive, self-creative state of mind. As a new era is unfolding it’s most important for humanity to ponder upon new potentialities, new probabilities, new ways of living. Realities on our planet at present are held within a paradigm (and acceptance) of unsustainability and destruction. It’s time now for humanity to step into a new world and on the Path of Return. This choice will be given with more clarity as 2026 further unfolds.

Interior Moment in Time for Humanity Winter and the New Year of 2026. It is a deep interior moment for humanity at this time. At the beginning of another new year. Let us share a few preparatory th…

01/09/2026

How to plan

I threw away the old calendar. Good riddance! Time to plan the best garden year ever in the history of ever, so I should set aside a moment to cogitate. You and I probably plan differently, and that’s a good thing because gardens are different… yours might look like House Beautiful and mine is often a mess regardless of my planning. Nevertheless, here are different planning experiences.

Brenda Songbird Moonrise grows mainly tomatoes and peppers… and basil and marigolds and cosmos… and echinacea and hyssop for the butterflies… and basil… and beans and cucumbers and lots of lettuce. She gardens 50 miles north of San Francisco where nasturtiums grow all year because the climate is usually mild. She gardens in a clearing in a forest, and her soil is naturally friable and fertile (good for her!), and she never digs deep, just adds to her beds a colorful assemblage of nearby leaves of many kinds. For long-term soil health, she sprinkles on dolomite and greensand twice a year.

How to plan I threw away the old calendar. Good riddance! Time to plan the best garden year ever in the history of ever, so I should set aside a moment to cogitate. You and I probably plan differen…

01/08/2026

Pictured is Mary from Texarkana with this very nice rainbow trout, caught with Busch Mountain Fishing Guide Service.

Beaver Tailwaters:

Welcome to 2026! I hope you all had wonderful holidays!

The weather has been bipolar lately, with some wild temperature swings. That kind of inconsistency can definitely make the bite a little tricky at times. On top of that, we’ve seen river levels steadily recede over the past month, changing up a lot of familiar water.

Even with all that, the bite has stayed fairly consistent.

Most fish are being caught on Pautzke Fire Worms, Fire Bait, and eggs. Those have been the most reliable producers day in and day out.

Pictured is Mary from Texarkana with this very nice rainbow trout, caught with Busch Mountain Fishing Guide Service. Beaver Tailwaters: Welcome to 2026! I hope you all had wonderful holidays! The…

01/08/2026

The 2025 version of the Gregorian Calendar turned and burned its 12th and final page of daze last week under an eerily-warm-weathered sky in the Ozark Mountains as Father Time bowed out of the race and a fresh Baby New Year ushered 2026 into the frame.

For Razorback basketball players and fans, January brings the onset of a gnarled and grueling three-month regimen of challenges only the mighty, mighty SEC can offer up, guarantee and provide week after week. It is a time to lockdown and turn up the heat, cuz Hansel, Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White and the likes do not have seats at this table, and cupcakes are not on the menu; instead, these chairs are reserved for fiends over friends – you know, like the Big Bad Wolf, Wicked Witch, Grinch, Joker and adversaries, formidable to the core – every single one of ‘em.

The Hogs kicked this year off by hosting one of the biggest and baddest rivals on their winter itinerary – the Tennessee Volunteers – with visions of revenge dancing in their minds they got down to business, beating Ricky Barnes’s team 86-75 in front of a rambunctious home crowd. That same rowdy crowd needs to show back up again and again to keep the scales tilted and foes on the run if Arkansas is to continue its re-rise to the promised land.

The 2025 version of the Gregorian Calendar turned and burned its 12th and final page of daze last week under an eerily-warm-weathered sky in the Ozark Mountains as Father Time bowed out of the race…

01/08/2026

Give Snow a Chance

When I left Arkansas for the west coast of Michigan, where the snows are deep and winter storms are plentiful, some folks thought I was off my rocker. After a recent blizzard blew across the Midwest to the east coast, a very dear Berryville friend texted me to see how I’d fared. I told him I now live in New York—because the wind was that fierce. But the truth is, I’m still in Michigan, delighting in the snow.

This evening T***sie the Wonder Dog and I took a walk, while thick snowflakes gently drifted eastward from Lake Michigan, which is merely blocks from home. A thick blanket of snow caressed my boot-clad ankles, and the near silence was serene. In fact, it was almost… well… religious—for lack of a better word. (Of course, the serenity might have been increased by my down filled hood and hearing impairment, but it was heavenly nonetheless.)

T***s scampered exuberantly, often sticking her head under the snow, sniffing for edible treasures. I kept a relaxed but steady pace, my mind acutely conscious of the beauty engulfing me. Then we both stopped, having noticed a pair of humans cross-country skiing along the golf course that terminates the street upon which we live. T***s was absolutely enchanted and wanted to investigate—but alas, a chain-link fence kept us from approaching them.

Give Snow a Chance When I left Arkansas for the west coast of Michigan, where the snows are deep and winter storms are plentiful, some folks thought I was off my rocker. After a recent blizzard ble…

01/08/2026

I’ve heard that timing is everything and sometimes I know exactly what that means.

In this morning’s mail a package that could only have been a book, or part of it would be a book because I could trace it. Mid-morning with the thermometer already slightly above 70° when even here in Arkansas there should be signs of winter, snow or cold or ice. But it was seventy and I had a mailer with at least one book.

I traded the delight of winter for the delight of words, a much longer lasting delight. From my friend in Wisconsin, my old neighbor Rick who loves words almost as much as he loves tennis and the Cubs. Or maybe it’s a triumvirate. A few pages copied from a book about the Chicago reporter Mike Royko and a copy of an essay he’d written in 1978, “How to Insult a Norwegian.”

The title alone is worth a Pulitzer in these days when our president has changed his ancestry from German to Norwegian. More than that, it’s a delightful essay I wish I had written so I could have contributed from my childhood that a Norwegian is a Swede with his brains knocked out… and it works the other way around to insult a Swede.

I’ve heard that timing is everything and sometimes I know exactly what that means. In this morning’s mail a package that could only have been a book, or part of it would be a book because I could t…

01/08/2026

And we’re back with a brand new season!

This season sponsored by the sheer willpower to have the best year possible! This week we’ve got modern blues-rock artist Kurt Allen bringing the Rocking The Blues Across America tour to town in the Rowdy Beaver Den. Show starts at 8 p.m., and the third best part (first being the band, second the drinks) is there’s no cover charge. This week as well we’ve got the start of the Mardi Gras season with the King’s Day Kickoff on Saturday from 1 – 3 p.m. Tickets can still be bought on Eventbrite.com and expect the conservatory to be decked out in purple, green, and gold. Appetizers included with ticket, cash bar available. For those who may not have seen on Facebook, Brews has an expected reopening on Feb. 1 as they have renovations underway and New Delhi Café is on their winter break until the 12th of February. For those on their winter breaks we wish you as great a time as we had on ours! ~J

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01/07/2026

Since 2015, fans of the Ozark Mountains Fun Guide have enjoyed the fruits of Rebecca Becker’s research into the remarkable lives of the young women who attended Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women.

Founded by the Eureka Springs Investment Company, Crescent College was established in 1908 as an exclusive boarding school for young women, and graduated a surprising number of artists, musicians, writers, activists, educators, entertainers and what we would now call cultural influencers.

And you thought the Crescent Hotel was only famous for its ghost stories…

Since 2015, fans of the Ozark Mountains Fun Guide have enjoyed the fruits of Rebecca Becker’s research into the remarkable lives of the young women who attended Crescent College and Conservatory fo…