I live in a small town of about 15,000 people. Roughly 13
percent of the population is made up of college students and another good chunk
of the community is comprised by the University’s faculty and staff.
Siloam Springs’ precursor town was originally founded in the
1850s as an outpost for trade between white settlers and the Cherokee Indians.
It was called ‘Hico’, which means ‘sparkling water’ in the Cherokee language.
Sager Creek runs through the town, and the springs are a central attraction for
the whole community.
In 1882, the town we now know as Siloam Springs was founded,
centralized around the springs that bubbled up in the Valley and flowed into
Sager Creek. In 1893, a railroad line from Kansas City was laid through the
town, and most of the historical businesses and buildings were established
between this time and the strike of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
This is the area that Grace and I set out to explore one
warm, breezy Sunday evening in March. There are a bunch of neat things we
photographed, and I felt like I had taken an adventurous step back in time.
Incredible broken
deer skull with rose-like bone structure in the nasal cavity. Please pardon the angle. I couldn't get it rotated it despite twenty minutes trying.
The Bank
This bank (originally not Arvest) was opened in 1932. That
was just shy of 20 years after the Federal Reserve was created, and at the
beginning of the Great Depression. Impressive indeed!
The Radio Station
KLRC, a Christian Contemporary radio station, began as a
training center on the JBU campus in 1983, and has since flourished into an
incredible, 100,000 watt signal non-profit radio station. Since 2011, it has
been housed in downtown instead of on the JBU campus, as it had been in the
years before. I listen to it on my daily commute, and it is one of the better
radio stations I’ve yet to find in this area.
Other Interesting Buildings
Parks and Rec. There is one.
City Hall. Where you go to pay your bills.
American Legion building. A veterans’ organization that
apparently also hosts weddings.
Ye olde Siloam Post Office. Closed now, apparently soon to
become a museum.
