The well-known New Madrid Earthquakes caused extensive damage through northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri during late 1811 and early 1812, significantly changing the landscape and impacting the area’s settlement. Tremors were felt as far away as the East Coast, and even here in the Ouachita River valley. Other earthquakes have been felt in this area as well. One notable quake was felt in June of 1939. Another significant event took place in May of 1870.

While not nearly so severe as the New Madrid Earthquakes, the 1870 tremor was serious enough to scare many. According to Arkadelphia’s Southern Standard newspaper, the quake occurred “a few minutes after 9 o’clock in the morning, preceded by a low rumbling noise, which was quickly followed by a tremendous shock and quivering of the earth, violently shaking the various buildings in town from foundation to garret, and causing a perfect stampede of citizens into the open street.” The only damage reported by the paper was “the breaking of a few bottles of medicine at Alston & Johnston’s Drug Store and the displacement of a few bricks on the courthouse and other chimneys.” In fact, court was in session when the courthouse began to shake, resulting in everyone quickly exiting the building. No one waited for adjournment of the court, nor “stood upon the order of their going, but went at once”! One man suggested that such earthquakes were simply “nothing more than the growling of the earth’s intestines.”

The shaking of the earth was not limited to the confines of Arkadelphia, however. Out in the surrounding area, a man was plowing in a small field near his home when the earth began to shake. He was at the end of a row by a big white oak tree, and heavy limbs started falling from the rocking tree. He ran to open ground where he heard his wife yelling from their home. The house was shaking; she grabbed their baby and ran out into the yard. Then, it was all over, and the trembling ended as quickly as it had begun.

Shortly after this, the man discovered a new spring which spewed up out of the ground about two feet in the air with a flow “as big as your arm.” He stuck a fifteen-foot pole into the new spring and did not reach the bottom. From that time on, it kept a small creek filled with water. People from the surrounding area later utilized the water in search of cures for of sickness and disease. For years, the spring served as the centerpiece of a campground and picnic area. The spring contained good mineral water, but over time, its flow weakened. According to long-time forester Armin T. Dressel, the spring finally went dry in the late 1930s.