SULPHUR SPRINGS — Thousands of Christmas lights illuminate 1,700 feet of the Old Spanish Treasure Cave in Benton County.
“We want people to know you can’t get lost during Christmas,” said Paul Linscott. “Just stay between the lights.”
This is the fourth year that Paul and Tracy Linscott, owners of the cave, have decked the caverns for Christmas.
“This is Arkansas’ only Christmas cave,” said Paul Linscott.
The cave opened Wednesday for the Christmas season. It’s on Arkansas 59 between Gravette and Sulphur Springs.
The winding cave has a low ceiling in places but opens up to larger “rooms” along the way. Sometimes, tall people walking through the cave have to duck so they don’t brush a hibernating bat. The ceiling looks like the petrified mud of a seabed, with fossilized shells and crinoid stems. Other parts of the cave have natural formations that resemble miniature moonscapes.
Visitors encounter a stuffed Santa Claus, Nativityscene and mechanical deer covered in white lights. One deer turns its head slowly. Another appears to be grazing. Bing Crosby’s voice echoes through the caverns encouraging visitors to have a holly jolly Christmas.
Christmas lights are arranged to form a teepee in the council room at the cave. Paul Linscott said the council room is where Spanish conquistadors camped before battling Indians nearby some 350 years ago.
Linscott said he has a 2.5-foot sword blade and metal belt as evidence, and others have unearthed Spanish coinsand a conquistador’s helmet in or near the cave. Linscott said he doesn’t know where the helmet and coins are now.
Hernando de Soto and his expedition are believed to be the only Spanish conquistadors who came to Arkansas, said Ann Early, state archaeologist. The Arkansas part of that expedition was in 1541 and 1542, and the explorers didn’t make it to Northwest Arkansas, according to experts.
Artifacts from the de Soto expedition could have been traded among Indians andwound up in Benton County, said Jeannie Whayne, a professor of history at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. By the time de Soto got to Arkansas after two years of exploring the southeast, his expedition had few belongings left, she said.
Early said it’s unlikely a conquistador’s helmet would be found in western Arkansas.
“Across the United States, since the early 1800s, there have been wonderful stories of buried treasure, ancient people and fabulous cities,” she said. “Sometimes these stories are developed by people who genuinely think they’ve found evidence.”
The only items archaeologists have found in Arkansas that are believed to have been left behind by Spanish explorers are a silver bell found in the Arkansas River Valley and a few things at the Parkin archaeological site in eastArkansas, which may have been the Indian village that de Soto described as Casqui, Early said.
Sixteenth-century European items from the Parkin site include a brass bell that had been tied around the neck of a buried child, fragments of two other bells, a seven-layer glass bead and a .60-caliber unfired lead shot, according to the Parkin archaeological site’s Facebook page. A bronze coin found at Parkin could also be from 16th-century Europe, but that hasn’t been determined.
Early said she’d be happy to examine any items unearthed in the Old Spanish Treasure Cave. She said documentsleft behind by explorers don’t indicate that they came any closer to Northwest Arkansas than the Arkansas River Valley.
“I am sure that there are 16th-century artifacts still in Arkansas from the de Soto expedition,” she said.
Linscott thinks the conquistadors who went to the Old Spanish Treasure Cave weren’t part of de Soto’s expedition. He said this group came up from Mexico.
“De Soto was not the only one that came to Arkansas,” Linscott said. “He was probably the most well-known.”
Regardless of whether conquistadors camped at the Old Spanish Treasure Cave, Early said, Arkansas caves offer natural beauty that’s worth a trip.
“I think some of those caverns are wonderful places for people to visit to see the wonderful natural phenomenon,” she said. “And they have histories of their own.”
Linscott said the Old Spanish Treasure Cave has been promoted as a tourist destination since the 1930s. He has owned it for 16 years.
The cave is open from Wednesday through Sunday during the Christmas season. The Christmas lights will remain up until January, Linscott said.
The cave is open the rest of the year for guided tours. During the spring, Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups camp in the cave. For Halloween, it’s converted into the Haunted Spanish Treasure Cavern.
Admission is $8 for adults, $4 for children ages 5-11, and free for younger children.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 17 on 12/16/2012