EUREKA SPRINGS - A 23-foot-tall rock resembling an inverted pyramid has been a roadside attraction near this tourist town for more than a century.
Pivot Rock doesn’t really pivot, as the name implies. It does what appears to be a gravity-defying balancing act. The rock is 30 feet long at the top and only 18 inches wide at the base. It’s the result of a crumbly limestone being eroded from around the base over thousands of years, leaving a two-story solid monolith.
For the past couple of years, Bill and Nancy Goff have been trying to sell Pivot Rock. The asking price is $695,000 for its 95-acre site, which has been in Nancy Goff’s family since her parents bought the land in 1926. Bill and Nancy Goff have owned the property since 1976. The property includes a 1,280-square-foot gift shop where Pivot Rock T-shirts and other items are sold.
Between 10,000 and 17,000 visitors come to see Pivot Rock every year, Bill Goff said. The Goffs charge $4.50 for adults and 50 cents for children age 12 and under to hike the short trail to the rock. Along the way, they get to see one of Arkansas’ natural bridges. Another formation that looks somewhat like Pivot Rock is near the end of the trail.
Pivot Rock’s heyday was probably around the turn of the 20th century, said Glenna Booth, who’s on the staff of the Eureka Springs Historic District Commission. Horse drawn wagons would haul groups out to Pivot Rock and other rural locations for picnics, she said.
Pivot Rock was featured in articles in the Kansas City Star in 1892 and Chicago Tribune in 1896. Goff has those articles as well as one from an 1890 New York City newspaper framed on the wall of the gift shop.
June Westphal, a Eureka Springs historian, said Pivot Rock was a popular horseback-riding destination not long after the city was incorporated in 1880. People who came to Eureka Springs for its healing waters were encouraged to enjoy the outdoors, and a horseback ride to Pivot Rock, 2 miles from downtown, was a good way to do that.
Pivot Rock has been featured in brochures about Eureka Springs ever since the town’s founding, Westphal said.
“It has been known about and visited as long as the town has been here so it definitely has been part of the entire history,” she said.
Robert Ripley made Pivot Rock more famous through his sketches, which began appearing in 1918 for newspapers across America under the headline “Believe it or Not.”
A 12-minute silent travel film made by the Ford Motor Co. in 1919 shows students from Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women on horseback at PivotRock, Westphal said. The Eureka Springs college existed from 1908 to 1933. Ford made short travel films to be shown at movie theaters across the country to encourage automobile travel.
Nancy Goff ’s parents, Robert and Beulah Mullins, bought the property at a time when Eureka Springs was gearing up for automobile tourism, Westphal said. The Great Depression set that back, but tourism in Eureka Springs recovered after World War II, when people were seeking “wholesome” and healthy outdoor destinations, she said.
The asking price for the 95 acres is considerably more than the $55,700 estimated value by the Carroll County assessor, but Gene Bland, Goff ’s real-estate broker, said the assessor’s estimate is based on the land’s agricultural value for timber, not for its potential as a tourist attraction.
“There’s almost 100 acres of awfully nice land with city water on it, and it’s adjacent to Lake Leatherwood Park,” said Goff.
Robert and Beulah Mullins had owned about 1,400 acres in the area, but they sold much of that property for what is now the 1,620-acre Lake Leatherwood Park, Goff said.
Pivot Rock Park is 2.3 miles east of U.S. 62 on Pivot Rock Road. The park is open every year from March 15, weather permitting, through November.
Similar limestone formations can be found around Eureka Springs but they’re not as dramatic as Pivot Rock, said Robert Beauford of Eureka Springs, an expert on Northwest Arkansas geology.
“To see the Northview layer eroding and causing the collapse of cliff faces around Eureka Springs is the norm,” Beauford said. “The fact that it didn’t fall off makes Pivot Rock unique.”
Northview is a layer of the St. Joe Limestone formation in the area. Beauford described Northview as “shaley, crumbly limestone.”
Beauford said similar formations can be seen along Miner’s Rock Trail at Lake Leatherwood and Bluff Trail at Black Bass Lake, which is also near Eureka Springs.
Westphal said she hopes Pivot Rock remains open to visitors after the land sells.
“Whether it is about to fall over, nobody can know,” Beauford said. “It could last a year or a thousand years, but I would feel comfortable placing my bet on a few hundred at most.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/22/2013