History of Underground Eureka

If you've spent any time exploring the small Ozark town of Eureka Springs, you've no doubt heard of the mysterious tunnels of "Underground Eureka". Local tour guides are quick to throw around salacious stories of clandestine prostitutes, infamous outlaws, quack doctors, and enterprising moonshiners using these subterranean passageways to skirt the law. But what are the facts?

I first heard about the Eureka Springs Underground about 20 years ago. I was told that there were secret tunnels under the sidewalks that were once all connected, extending from the north end of town to the south. Local youth spent years exploring these cobwebbed chambers, often sneaking into the adjacent basements and getting into all kinds of trouble. Their mischief convinced many of the property owners to wall off the tunnels at their property lines, resulting in a string of disconnected tunnels with little public access. The only tunnel that remained contiguous was one built to channel the flow of Leatherwood Creek beneath the buildings and parkings lots along the east side of Main Street.

For many years, it was said that the sidewalk tunnels were the result of a massive municipal project in the 1890s to raise the overall levels of Main and Spring Streets, turning street-level storefronts into basements. Some have even gone so far as to suggest there was "an underground city" down there! We do know that certain sections of the streets were extensively re-graded, such as the area in front of Basin Park, but we've yet to find proof of the streets being raised a full story from one end of town to the other. Certainly there would have been photos, city records, and newspaper accounts of such a disruptive and costly downtown project, but I have yet to find them. This has led some to claim that there is no Underground Eureka at all. I would counter that regardless of why these amazing limestone tunnels were created, they are still very much an "underground" phenomenon and remain a fascinating mystery.

This website was originally launched in 2007 to document explorations of the infamous Underground Eureka tunnels, and to share the fragments of factual history that we've been able to unearth about them.Enjoy your visit and watch your head!