Carrie A. Nation carries a hatchet

Eureka Springs is a place for contradictions. Carry A. Nation is one of them. The fiery leader of the temperance movement, Carry A. Nation, moved to Eureka Springs near the close of her life chapter and established a boarding house on Steele Street, early Eurekans reached by Jacob's Ladder.

She operated her lodging and “National College” for religious instruction for several years before she collapsed after giving her final oration in Basin Spring Park in 1911. Her final words? “I have done what I could,” she reportedly said before collapsing.

For the duration of her life, Carry Nation was one of America’s most determined enemies of alcohol use. She became famous or at least notorious for storming into saloons with her hatchet and smashing bottles, barrels, mirrors, and barroom fixtures. She even passed out little hatchets as souvenirs to her followers. Her crusade grew out of painful personal experience.

One of her tales includes storming the saloons near Beaver, north of Eureka Springs. We travel that area on our Sightseeing Diving Tour. During the quarry and railroad boom, Beaver and the short-lived settlement of Brooklyn had 30 saloons between them. Local history holds that Nation entered one of those establishments and destroyed a significant portion of it before she was stopped.

The old railroad once connected Eureka Springs with Beaver and Seligman, carrying travelers, stone, supplies—and undoubtedly a few thirsty quarry workers. Today, that historic route leads visitors to a very different kind of drinking establishment.

Railway Winery is located along the former Missouri & North Arkansas Railroad route. As part of a family farm and vineyard, they produce wines from grapes and fruits grown in the Ozarks. Their companion distillery, Butler Creek Distilling, turns out small-batch moonshine, whiskey, rum, and gin in the traditional copper-pot style. Both are open for tasting if you’re 21 or older. Carrie Nation would almost certainly disapprove.

History certainly appreciates the symmetry. In the hills where Carrie Nation once raised a hatchet against the saloon, visitors now raise a glass to local craftsmanship. The railroad has quieted, Brooklyn has disappeared, and the rough saloons are gone. But the Ozarks still know how to produce a spirited story, one nurtured in the hills during Prohibition and probably long before. Take a peek at what moonshining looks like at Butler Creek Distilling.