I've been missing in action lately, working on various projects. The following is the text from one of my programs on The Ozark Radio Hour (ozarkradiohour.com) I hope you enjoy it. If you would like to listen to our program, broadcasts are available 24/7 on our web-site. Archived programs are also available.


                                              Hatchet Hall: The Carrie Nation House 

I’m in front of the Carrie Nation House, also known as Hatchet Hall, on Steele Street in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It’s a two story house, remarkable only because it’s hanging precariously off the side of a steep mountain overlooking town; but that’s not so unusual—most of the houses in Eureka Springs proper are built on the side of one mountain or another. On second thought, I take that back. It’s remarkable that it’s still standing since Carrie used dynamite to blast a hole in the rock only a few feet across the road from her house, but more about that later.

I’m not sure the younger generation knows very much about Carrie Nation, although there was a punk band named after her a few years back and a designer beer called “My Bitter Wife” named in her honor in 2013. The label is a caricature of Carrie and her hatchet and is highly ironic since Carrie was one of the most famous prohibitionists of her time. For those of you not familiar with the Carrie Nation legend, she was famous for using a hatchet to break up saloons in her fight against the evils of drinking, a well-known national figure, and a heroine to many who were against the consumption of demon alcohol; although looking at her from a modern perspective, she must have had some demons of her own. Of course, that was a long time ago; but her house on Steele Street in Eureka Springs still stands, a memorial of sorts, to one of our more infamous residents. There’s still a sign in front of her house that identifies it as Hatchet Hall, the Carrie Nation House. She may be gone but is certainly not forgotten.

Carrie’s name seems to pop-up now and again in discussing the history of the Ozarks. I mentioned her recently in a program on the history of the Beaver Bridge and the town of Brooklyn, and she came up in my conversation with Stephanie Stodden at the

Eureka Springs Historical Museum recently. So who was this woman who led such a controversial life, and how did she wind up with a museum named Hatchet Hall in her honor?

Carrie Amelia Nation was born in 1846 in Kentucky. Her family was fairly well off but had financial problems over the years, and as a result moved several times before settling in Belton, Missouri. In addition to the family’s financial difficulties, there was a history of mental illness, with her mother suffering from delusions; and later Carrie’s only child would also have mental issues. During the Civil War, the family was evacuated from their farm by Union troops and moved to Kansas City where Carrie nursed wounded soldiers. There she met and married a young doctor in 1867, but the marriage only lasted a short time. Her husband was an alcoholic and they separated before the birth of their only child, a daughter. He died in 1869 of severe alcoholism. This experience no doubt played a part in her hatred for spirits of any kind.

Carrie’s second marriage was to David A. Nation, an attorney, minister, and newspaper journalist. He was nineteen years her senior and at the time of their marriage was fairly well off , but he made a series of poor investments. The family moved to Medicine Lodge, Kansas where he took a position as a preacher at a Christian church while Carrie ran a successful hotel. It was there in Medicine Lodge that Carrie seems to have gone off the deep end. She started a branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and began her protests outside of salons in the area. By 1900 she was having visions that she said told her to use rocks, which she called smashers, to destroy the stock in the local saloons in Kiowa. As she continued these attacks, she was arrested numerous times and her fame began to spread. After she smashed up a saloon in Wichita, her husband jokingly suggested that she use a hatchet instead of rocks. Carrie is said to have replied, “That’s the most sensible thing you have said since I married you.” They were divorced in 1901.

Joined by other women or sometimes alone, she would march into bars singing hymns while smashing bar fixtures and stock with her hatchet. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested at least 30 times. She called her attacks “hatcetations” and coined the temperance phrase Carry A Nation, using her name as a play on words. She gave lectures, traveled to Europe, and published a newspaper, not surprisingly named The Hatchet. She sold miniature hatchets as souvenirs and appeared in vaudeville in the United States and in the Music Halls of Great Britain. She thought President William McKinley was a secret drinker and applauded his 1901 assassination, saying that drinkers got what they deserved. She described herself as a bull-dog running at the feet of Jesus.

Near the end of her life, Carrie moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and founded Hatchet Hall. The home is no longer open as a museum, as it was when I moved here over a decade ago; but visitors might be interested in driving by. The house is on the low side of the road, built on the slope of the mountain, nearest to downtown. Across from the house, the mountain rises steeply, covered in woods, much like it would have been when Carrie lived there. The small limestone caves and crevices of the mountain provided the perfect place to keep perishable food, even during the summer months; and there was just such a place directly across from Hatchet Hall. Believing she was called by God and protected, Carrie used dynamite to blast a larger opening to the cave, just a few feet from her home. It’s a wonder she didn’t bring the whole mountain down, and a wonder that Hatchet Hall survived Carrie Amelia Nation.

During her final years in Eureka Springs, Carrie continued to use her hatchet to break up the numerous saloons in the area. One famous incident occurred on the White River at the town of Beaver, not far from Brooklyn, a small town of predominately Irish stonemasons, now just a memory. It was located across the river from Beaver where the railroad bridge crossed at the Narrows. The details of what actually happened are based on local legend and may be embellished, but it makes a good story.

One fine day, Carrie paid a visit to several of the saloons in Brooklyn, using her famous hatchet that she had named Charity to smash and destroy as much of the stock as she could. She was a big woman, almost six feet tall and weighed in at 175 pounds. I imagine she was pretty hard to control with that hatchet in her hand. After wreaking havoc in Brooklyn, she crossed the White River to Beaver town and made an assault on another saloon, but this time she was met with an angry mob who physically ejected her and chased her back toward the river. There the saloon owner got Charity away from her and threw the hatchet into the middle of the river. No doubt, this played a role in her collapse a few days later during a speech at a Eureka Springs park. She was hospitalized in a facility in Leavenworth, Kansas that treated nervous and mental troubles.

The consensus is that Carrie had a stroke that may have been brought on by her rough treatment that day on the White River. She died in 1911 and was buried in Belton, Missouri where the Women’s Christian Temperance Union erected a stone to her memory inscribed, “Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could.”

This has been a brief look at the life of one of our most eccentric residents, one whose memory still resonates today in our little Victorian town. Before I leave the Carrie Nation House today, I think I’ll walk across the street and take a closer look at the little spring that’s named in her honor. Then I’ll head home to Beaver and cross the White River where Charity was thrown in by an angry crowd of men, all those years ago.

These days, Eureka Springs is known for its diverse population and prides itself on being tolerant, although it has been a challenge recently, with our differences aired to a national audience on The Daily Show. When I moved here over a decade ago, Eureka Springs was promoted as “The Town Where Misfits Fit.” I haven’t seen that slogan around in quite a while. I hope it still defines us.