Congratulations to these Eurekans for a great 2025
Despite everything on the national and world stages in 2025, there are still things to celebrate locally as Eureka Springs looks back.
It was a banner year for new (or in one case, revived) annual events.
The first Eureka Springs Music Awards presented awards in 10 categories to local musicians and venues in April.
Also in April, Eureka Springs’ Victorian architecture provided the perfect backdrop for the first Goggles, Gears, and Springs steampunk festival and parade. The outfits and vendors were spectacular.
The Rockin’ Eureka Legends of Rock’n’Roll Tribute Festival brought a slew of Elvis impersonators to town in May.
In June, La Grange Lavender held The Bloom. The two-day festival featured food, music, art, and more, with fields of blooming lavender in the background. The farm also hosted its second Lavender & Lore event in the fall, featuring local authors reading and signing their work.
The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow held its first benefit gala, Bookmarked: A Jazz Jubilee, at the Crescent Hotel in August. The 1920s-themed event featured a stellar jazz trio out of Springfield, fun dance lessons by Melonlight Theater, and more. (I serve on the nonprofit’s board of directors.)
The Fat Tire Festival, which started in 1999 and became Arkansas’s largest mountain biking event, went into hiatus during the 2020 pandemic. It returned this fall, now part of the Arkansas Enduro Series.
As in every year, brave new entrants to the competitive Eureka Springs food scene deserve applause as well.
Java Dudes moved their coffee truck from Rogers to where the Soup Shack used to be on US 62. They also supply the newly opened Haunted Grounds Coffee on Main Street, next to the equally new Boodega, a spooky-themed convenience store.
Holiday Island’s Yellow Frisbee Bakery relocated to Eureka Springs’ Gaskins Switch shopping center as The Squatch, a Bigfoot-themed breakfast and lunch joint.
Another Holiday Island eatery, Hotboxx Pizza, opened Hotboxx Express for delivery throughout Eureka Springs. This is seriously good pizza, y’all.
A few other accomplishments are worth pointing out.
Congratulations to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge for making USA Today’s list of 10 best safari parks, and for undertaking its first international rescues.
Congratulations to new magazine Eureka Yard Party. If the first issue is any indication, this “independent forum for local culture, arts, and news” is going to be a deep look into Eureka Springs’ soul.
Congratulations to the public works department for getting the city’s water leakage rate down to 30% this year. When director Simon Wiley took over three years ago, it was at 60%. I shit you not. (Simon will narrate my chapter about Dr. C. F. Ellis, who spearheaded the city’s first water and sewer system, in the audiobook edition of Welcome to Eureka Springs: The I-Sh*t-You-Not History of America’s Quirkiest Town.)
I’m sure I missed other worthy achievements that happened in 2025, but I was busy doomscrolling for much of it. Here’s to finding the good things happening in 2026.