USA > North Carolina > Guilford County > Greensboro > Greensboro (Guilford County, N.C.) city directory, 1899-1900 > Part 2
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Ponce de Leon heard of these wonderful waters when he came with Columbus, he was younger then, gold and adventure had made him a sailor, but in after years
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when he was governor of Porto Rico and the weight of years had bowed his into an old man's form, he bethought him of the story of the spring of perpetual youth and started out to find it. He sailed with three ships from Porto Rico in March, 1512, but lazily dallied through the voyage, landing on this island and then on that, finally reaching the coast of Florida on the 29th of March, Easter Sunday, Pascua Florida, as the Spaniards call it, and thus gave the' state its name. The search for the fountain of the magic waters began at once, the natives led the old don a lively chase, up the Oklawaha's crooked course to Silver Spring, where the waters were crystal clear and deep enough to float his ships, but their placid sur- face was not imparted to the wrinkles of the searcher after youth and beauty.
"Beyond, to the westward, toward the setting sun." was all the Indians would tell, and led the Spaniards to Wakulla, under the shadow of the Tallahasse hills- here, too, the waters were beautifully clear, but the swarthy skins were still brown when they bathed, and this was not the spring they sought.
"Beyond, to the westward, toward the setting sun," was still the answer. Disap- pointed and discouraged Ponce de Leon returned to his ships and sailed away, re- turned again in 1521, was met by hostile savages and in a battle with them received a poison arrow that caused his death soon after his return to Cuba.
Then came DeSoto, a younger man, in search for nothing in particular, but for anything he could pick up, not caring whether it was a gold mine or a fountain of perpetual youth. He was rich, he had been in Peru with Pizarro and had his share in the ransom of Atahualpa, so he could lend money to the king, which he did, and was made Adelantando of Florida. He was young, but recognized the fact that he would be older, and while in search of new honors and adventure, he might find gold and incidentally the spring of perpetual youth.
A quarter of a century had passed since Ponce de Leon came and went when De Soto's ships anchored in Espiritu Santo Bay on the west coast of Florida, the bay now called Tampa. They were good Indians at Tampa, but in the interior they were bad, and De Soto found that it was to be Peru over again if he was to get anything-nothing daunted he set out with his little army of five hundred men and two hundred houses in the year 1539. It was a splendid force of men that had marched behind De Soto under the banner of King Charles V. of Spain at the mus- ter of San Lucar in old Spain, and with the story of Peru fresh in their minds sailed away, light hearted, and dreamed away the days that passed so slowly on the sum- mer seas ere they came to Tampa bay; dreamed of gold, of fortunes made and youth renewed-now the long, tedious voyage was over and the march began that was to make their dreams come true.
As Cortez found an interpreter on the coast of Mexico in the person of a Span- iard held captive by the Indians from a former expedition, so De Soto found an- ofher, Juan Ortiz, who had for many years been a slave of the Indian king, Hirri- higua, but more a devoted slave of King Hirrihigua's daughter, who had saved his life, of course, a la Pocahontas, and under whose sweet influences he had learned the language of her people. Ortiz became the guide and interpreter of De Soto.
The Spanish chief had lost none of the cruel disposition evinced in the conquest of the Incas of Peru, and as Oveido says, "was very fond of the sport of killing Indians." He made them, men and women, carry his baggage, work about the camp and find food for his men and horses, forcing one chief to go as far as the tribe of another, then sending him back, but the carriers trudged on until they died; hence the news of De Soto's coming was not good news, and his path was not strewn with roses.
An old man of "La Louiiane," embracing the territory of Florida, Georgia, part of the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana shows the route of De Soto's march. He passed very near Silver Spring and Wa- kulia, and must have halted to try the efficacy of the vey beautiful waters of those springs, and he may have heard of the gold of Dahlonega, since his route turned northeast soon after he passed Wakulla and led him through the hills of north Georgia; thence De Soto marched in a southwesterly course and came to Mobile bay, where he rested, then going north, leaning westward, made the discovery of the Mississippi river at the Chicasaw Bluffs, between Helena and Memphis.
No gold had been found, but there was news of the fountain of youth, with the further information that the waters were hot and that these hot springs were just beyond the great river; all preparation was made for their quest. There was a grand review of his followers In bergantins made and launched onthe waters of the mighty river. It had been more than two years since the muster at San Lucar, an ocean had been crossed and a continent traversed in weary marches, half his men had fallen by the way, but the review on the river was a picturesque cele- bration of the grand discovery.
Ortiz was dead, but their adversities had been a teacher of language to De Soto and his soldiers. They crossed the river near the lower Chickasaw Bluff in June, 1541, and pushed into the wilderness of Arkansas. Again there was news of a shining metal, and for the time the search for the fountain of youth was forgotten and the route of march was northwest; besides, the savages were jealous of their knowledge of the hot springs, and it may be that they invented the story of gold, as it was found that the "shiningmetal " was only of a baser sort, and the Span- iards were led on to the discovery of the lead and zinc mines of Missouri. The march was bitterly opposed by the Indians, whether it was in the direction of the healing waters or the shining metal, but more jealously guarded the hot springs, and harassed the soldiers at every step.
DeSoto chose the search for gold rather than the fountain of youth, and marched up the bank of the White river; he was led into a wilderness of impene- trable swamps where savage Indians lay in ambush at every turn. Near the present town of Jacksonport, a bloody battle was fought, in which the Spaniards were de- feated; the march south abandoned and & further advance made along the banks of the White river and an attempt made to ford it at another point, and, although opposed by a large body of Indians, they were defeated. De Soto rested here a while and further news of the gold in the northwest was brought to him, the march to the supposed gold fields was resumed and the hot springs for the while forgotten. The Indians' gold was only zinc. the course was turned southward again and the search for the spring of the wondrous waters resumed, only to be hindered by the serious sickness of the intrepid leader of the band.
De Soto fell ill and was taken to the wigwam of a friendly Indian chief. This :. chief had a daughter whose beauty was the talk of the forests for miles and miles : around about, and as a princess of the blood her hand was sought by the young y chiefs of the tribes far and near, but Ulelah was a coy maiden, and up to the ar- in
he 1er nd- ies, the
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rival of De Soto was heart-whole and fancy-free. The pages of history and fic- tion are strewn with the wrecks of disappointed hopes of lovers whose barks have been cast upon the rocks of a handsome man ill in the house of a sweetheart, and the young chiefs looked not with favor on De Soto's indisposition and sojourn in the tepee of Ulelah's father.
De Soto was fair to look upon from an Indian's point of view, and Ulelah was smitten with his manly beauty and became at once, ostensibly, his nurse, glad in her heart, probably, that the Spaniard was sick, because she knew of a cure that was sure; she knew where the hot springs were, and would take him there when his illness required it. In the meantime she could be near him, minister to his wants and care for him tenderly. While her father searched the forsts for roots and herbs with which to brew a healing potion, Ulelah gathered flowers and brought cool water from the brooks near by, thus to cheer him and to cool his fevered brow. De Soto's illness lingered, but withal if he had been better he might have lingered long- er in these romantic shades and with such a ministering angel. The state of things was pleasant for all except Ulelah's lovers, and they dared not speak without the old chief's word, for his guest was his friend while he stayed.
L'lelah told her patient of the wonderful spring in the valley of vapors, the No- wa-say-non that the Kanawagas found and took their plague-stricken people to; told him how that many years ago when the world was young, the waters of the mystic spring where cold in the valley Man-a-ta-ka, the place of peace, where wars ceased to be and warriors laid down their bows and arrows to take up their stricken brothers and help them to bathe in the waters that the Great Spirit had with his warm breath turned from cold to hot for their healing; told him of the peaceful valley where no man was ever slain; no life of bird or beast ever taken; where all might come and put down the burden of human ailment.
Ulelah told De Soto of this and often entreated her father to take him to this famous mountain, but still the old chief delayed and Ulelah pleaded all the more; at last after many days her favor was granted and the journey commenced. De Soto was carried through the forests on a litter, Ulelah walked by his side and pushed away the too-obtruding branches that might brush her lover's face; was ever near in all the weary walk, to cheer him with her kindly smile and encourage with some new story of the wonderful waters that would make him well again.
At last they came to the valley Man-a-ta-ka, the place of peace, to the springs No-way-say-non, the breath of healing. Ulelah brought the water for her lover to drink, and the old chief carried him in his arms to the pools of the health-re- storing waters, that he might bathe and be well again. Soon De Soto was able to walk about under the trees that grow in the valley, leaning, perhaps, somewhat upon on Ulelah's pretty shoulder, and walking, perhaps, somewhat near her side as he passed around some rugged rock on the mountain side. This was observed partic- ularly by a young chieftain, upon whom Ulelah had looked with some favor before De Soto came, and who had followed her here and watched with a jealous eye the Spaniard's returning strength, till one day with uplifted tomahawk he sprang from behind a bowlder and sought to strike his rival dead; the weapon trembled in the air, then dropped from his withered, palsied hand, harmless to the ground, ringing out the Great Spirit's decree that no blood should be shed in this valley of peace.
The story does not end as in the fairy tale, where "they married and lived happy ever afterward." Old Davilla's daughter, De Soto's wife, was far away in old Spain, but sufficiently near to prevent a pleasant denouement. History leaves us groping in the dark as to Ulelah's fate, and we cannot say whether she married a plumed and feathered chieftain or gave to some lofty cliff the name and title of "Lover's Leap," from whose top she plunged when, since De Soto went, life was not worth living.
De Soto had found a spring whose waters, if indeed they were not the waters of perpetual youth, were a panacea for all the ills the flesh is heir to, and he hastened away to tell the world about it-a wonderful tale, he thought, was his to relate, but he was not to come again to his native land-he died on he march and was buried beneath the waters of the great river he discovered. His companions took back to the civilized world the story of his achievements and recorded for De Soto and his intrepid band two of the greatest discoveries in the history of the world-the Mississippi river and the Hot Springs, of Arkansas.
One of the followers of De Soto, a Portuguese calling himself "a Gentleman of Elvas," says of his chief: "The governor rested a month in the province of Cayas, in which time the horses fattened and thrived more than in other places in a longer time, with the great plenty of maize and the leaves thereof, which I think was the best that has been seen, and they drank of a lake of very hot water, and somewhat brackish." The record shows that in 1541 he was ten days in coming down from Caligoa, a village in northwest Arkansas, to the province of Cayas, going from one tribe to another, as he had done in all his march from Tampa, probably because he could learn nothing from one tribe he went to another, or exhausting the able- bodied in carrying his baggage he went to the next for his carriers.
Thus is the record clear that the white man was at Hot Springs more than three hundred and fifty years ago, but there is a lapse in that time of two hundred and sixty years, when a survey of the Hot Springs country was made under the direction of the United States government by Lewis and Clark, who descended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red River, up that stream to the Ouachita, thence up to Hot Springs creek to the Hot Springs ..
In 1807 Manuel Prudhomme built the first house at Hot Springs; by 1812 the first visitor had arrived; in 1820 John Millard, built a double log cabin for the entertain- ment of visitors, which may be called the first hotel at Hot Springs. In 1829 the number of visitors began to increase, and in 1830 Asa Thompson erected the first bath house and the first real hotel. Though the fame of the waters had brought many a health-seeker even as far back as the old Spanish days.
Many attempts have been made by various and sundry persons to pre-empt the lands around Hot Springs, but they have remained the property of the United States since the treaty with the Quapan Indians in 1818, and prior to that time, be- ing within an Indian reservation, could not be pre-empted, the spurious claims of Spanish grants having been repudiated, and under the title obtained from the em- peror of France, Napoleon I., in the purchase of Louisiana, the right to the property is acknowledged to be vested in the government of the United States.
On the 20th of April, 1832, Congress passed an act setting apart four sections of land, 2,560 acres, as a reservation for the exclusive use of the United States, which settled forever all claims or pre-emptions, a decision that a terrible earthquake has failed to shake-this is not a simile, but a fact; in 1811 there was a violent earthquake near New Madrid, Mo., which submerged some lands belonging to settlers; the gov- ernment granted to the losers of the land, warrants to locate on any unoccupied.
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lands that had been surveyed and to which there was no title held by any Indian tribe.
These warrants were called "New Madrid Floats," were transferable and one of them having come into the possession of Col. Elias Rector, of St. Louis, in 1820, he tried to float it in the waters of Hot Springs, for your St. Louis man is cognizant of a valuable article when he percieves it, and to Col. Rector it appeared a safe in- vestment in this warrant if he could locate it at this particular spot in the Ozark mountains. His plans, however, were not successful; the long and expensive litiga- tion did not close until 1875-6, when the Court of Claims and the Supreme Court decided the case in favor of the United States and settled forever all claims to the lands of the Hot Springs reservation. The Government owns many reservations and parks, thoughout the country, but this is the only one in its class, the only one that the government has held as a sanitarium. There are many hot springs, warm springs and springs of healing waters within the boundaries of the United States, but they have not been reserved for the people-then the very fact of the reserva- tion of the Hot Springs of Arkansas places them pre-eminently above all others.
In thus preserving the ownership of Hot Springs the government has protected the people against all possibility of monopoly, and by discreet regulation establishes a competition that tends to prevent extortion that might come under a private control -and for her soldiers and sailors has established a great hospital for their ex- clusive use.
It was not until the early '70's that railway communication brought the famous sanitarium near enough to civilization to be largely patronized; then it was sixty miles from Little Rock, overland by stage to Hot Springs. A little later the great Iron Mountain road continued its extension towards Texas, and when it reached Malvern the stage ride was reduced to twenty miles; there was an increase in the number of visitors, even with the sixty mile stage ride from Little Rock, and a still greater influx when the coaches ran from Malvern. But even then the stages did not run every day; there was often a postponement on account of the weather, mud- dy roads and swollen streams.
One day in February, 1874, three gentlemen came to Malvern on the Iron Moun- tain: "Diamond Joe" Reynolds, Col. L. D. Richardson and Capt. William Fleming. They were very anxious to reach Hot Springs that day. The roads were bad, the creeks and rivers out of their banks; no one could be hired to venture out with a team; so they determined to walk. It is safe to say that the Hot Springs railroad did not originate in a promoter's office 'mid heaps of profiles, blue prints and statis- tics-as these three trudged towards the "Valley of Vapors" though rain and mud they thought-thought a great deal, and perhaps said things not calculated to ke nut in print, and not referring altogether to railroad building, but the argument in their minds was that if Hot Springs were sufficiently attractive to induce such a walk as this, to say nothing of the lumbering stages, the people would ride on any sort of a railroad, and they concluded to build a narrow-guage, and before the year was out the whistle of the locomotive echoed back from the cliffs of the Ozark hills where fell the tomahawk that did not kill the Spanish chieftain, and thus is told the story from De Soto to Diamond Jo.
To point a moral and adorn a tale, an appendix is often necessary, and to this one it is essential; the railway that "Jo" built did not remain a narrow gauge; in 1889 it was changed to a standard, and in January, 1890, a through train ran from St. Louis to Hot Springs; the stage coach was long ago a thing of the past, and now even the change of cars at Malvern was done away with. Since then every day in the year the cars have gone through without change, carrying their burdens of pleas- ure as well as health-seekers, of despondent cripples and helpless invalids, bringing them back happy and sound and whole. It is a fact that is noted, that although the Iron Mountain road enjoys a monopoly of the tavel to Hot Springs, since there is no cther route, there is a liberality on the part of the management that is not always exhibited in such cases. It is often considered that such great attractions as Hot Springs, with only one way of reaching them, do not need advertising and that the ordinary car service will suffice; yet here is a health resort that has been known to civilized man for more than three hundred and fifty years with only one means of access, and the management of that only road, the Iron Mountain. favors the public with the most beautiful books illustrated by the finest engravings on wood from drawings by such artists as Victor Perard, T. J. Blood, Warren B. Davis, F. A. Carpenter, F. Humphrey, W. Woolrych, E. A. Clement, A. E. Anderson and J. P. Davis, with text by the best writers; then the through car service is as fine as the finest in the land, with trains on accelerated schedules, taking the least possible time in transit. There is really only one Hot Springs, and the Iron Mountain is the only road, but you may have books and books, for the asking; books that tell the story of three centuries and of all there is there today; and when you go you may ride in the finest cars in the world-the cars that run down to the Valley of Vapors. REAU CAMPBELL.
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THE CITY OF HOT SPRINGS.
From the construction of the first bath-house in 1829 to the advent of the rail- road in 1874, the development of Hot Springs was necessarily slow, though every year increasing numbers of invalids from all parts of the world, braved the inconveni- ences and annoyances of the limited means of transportation and the uattractive ac- commodations in their search for relief and restoration to health. The opening of the Hot Springs railroad in 1874 gave immediate stimulus to the place. Not only did the annual number of visitors become at once greater, but thousands of people took up a permanent residence and engaged in business. Thus within twenty years has sprung up a thriving, go-ahead city with fifteen or twenty thousand people, which entertains over fifty thousand visitors each year, and which possesses every conve- nience of easy accessibility, sumptuous hotels and unlimited facilities for recuper- ation and entertainment. Hot Springs is at once unique, picturesque and interesting. The visitor, while strolling along its avenues, is vividly impressed with the re- markable contrasts presented on every hand. Strong and vigorous men, with manly stride, pass their antipodes in invalid chairs or on crutches. Meeek oxen gaze in silent wonderment at the spanking teams of thoroughbreds which prance by; the stylishly dressed New Yorker or Londoner walks side by side with the Ozark farmer in his rusty suit of gray jeans; the very buildings share the general antithesis; hand- some four-story brick blocks look down on decrepid one-story Wntaf shanties, colossal hotels overshadow ramshackle lodging houses. Owing to t.
he re of the
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location there is little regularity about the streets and avenues. The main thorough- fares follow the courses of the streams between the mountains, Central avenue, the principal business street, being a broad valley running north and south between the Hot Springs and West Mountains. This was formerly the bed of the Hot Springs creek, and was filled with huge bowlders, which, with the wanton course of the stream, made the valley well nigh impassable. The government work of confining the creek to a tunnel or underground passage, clearing the valley and constructing a well-paved street above, was an engineering feat of no small proportions. It was inade necessary, however, before the bath-houses could be constructed, or a business street established. On Central Avenue are located most of the bath houses, hotels and business houses, though during recent years the Avenue, having been closely built up, the town has spread southward into the Ouachita Valley, which now claims many fine streets and business blocks. The bath-houses occupy about three blocks in the Government Reservation, on the east side of Central Avenue, in the heart of the city and at the base of the Hot Springs mountain, from which they are sup- plied direct with the thermal waters. The business part of the city is of a sub- stantial and permanent character, and shows decided improvement in the past two or three years. Several solid business blocks have been and are now being erected, and still greater changes may be looked for in the near future. The street railway facilities of Hot Springs are remarkably good, there being over eight miles of elec- trice car lines now in operation, connecting all avenues and sections of the city via Central Avenue. The rolling stock is new and the cars will compare favorably with those in use in large cities.
Hot Springs enjoys an excellent supply of pure water for drinking purposes and domestic uses and it is furnished in such volume as to be of effective use in case of fire. A clear mountain stream fed by huge springs, about two miles north of the city, was converted into a lake half a mile or more long, by the building of a dam of solid masonry, thirty-eight feet high, extending from mountain to mountain. From the lake this water is forced into an immense reservoir on the summit of the moun- tain, 280 feet above the streets of the city, causing so great a pressure that a stream from the largest hose can be thrown over the highest buildings without the aid of a fire engine. This improvement cost the city over $150,000, having a capacity of 2,250,- 000 gallons daily. The fire department is well organized and equipped with all nec- essary paraphernalia, and shows, when occasion requires, that it is fully efficient. The city is well supplied with churches, nearly all the leading denominations being represented, and all are in a flourishing condition. The choice residence portion of the city are on Park and Whittington Avenues, though there are many handsome homes in the southern section, especially on Malvern and South Central Avenues, .and the government has erected expensive and beautiful houses on the Reservation for the superintendent and surgeon in charge of the Government Hospital. Many of the residences of Hot Springs will compare favorably, in elegance and beautiful surroundings, with those of larger citles, and are pleasing evidences of the wealth and refinement which have found their way to this city of the Ozarks.
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