Historian believes cave was the first Arkansas school
The school was operating for nearly two decades before Arkansas became a state.
RAVENDEN SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Almost 200 years ago, children trekked through woods into a dark canyon in the easternmost reaches of the Ozark Mountains. They did this regularly for years, assembling in a cave to learn.
Believed to be the first school in Arkansas, the cave served early settlers and those who followed them through much of the 19th century. Baptist minister Caleb Lindsey started the school in 1817, presumably teaching children Bible lessons, along with reading, writing and ’rithmetic.
Bill Carroll, Lindsey’s great-great-great nephew, said little is known about the school curricula or what lengths both teacher and students went to in the name of education. But Carroll, 61, remembers his great-grandmother telling him of going to school in a nearby community.
“More than once bears and panthers chased her pony on her way to school, so these kids must have really wanted an education,” he said. “As for why a cave, well, it’s just about the right size for a small classroom. You know caves are pretty much the same temperature all year. If you have a kerosene lamp in there, it will both light and heat it.”
The School Cave, as Carroll calls it in a history he wrote for The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, was operating for nearly two decades before Arkansas became a state in 1836. The region was part of the Missouri Territory then.
Over the years, the cave entrance — some 12 feet high by 15 feet wide — was modified slightly. An old photograph shows the cave with a wooden facade; locals proudly stand in front of the school. Today, a concrete wall, probably built in the 1940s, keeps out visitors who must travel over terrain slightly more accessible but still rugged. On the wall, someone has written a “footnote” in red paint — “the first school in Arkansas ... see Dalton’s History of Randolph County page 43.”
The cave and the canyon are fixtures in the memories of those who grew up in Randolph County. Circuit Judge Phillip Smith can recall the summers he spent as a boy with church groups, swimming in Hall’s Creek and seeking out adventures among the rock formations. Carroll, whose family has lived in the area since 1802, enjoyed going to the springs and scrambling through the forest.
“Everyone here, just about some time each year — fall, summer, some time — took their family to Ravenden Springs. There’s so much to see there that’s unusual in the canyon,” Carroll said. “You go to the spring. Then you go on down the canyon. There’s what’s called a Devil’s Pool, which is a long swimming hole on the creek. Just above it, if you climb up a fairly gentle slope through rock is the School Cave.
“Then as you go on down and the walls get higher, there’s solid rock. There’s the Lone Rock ... the Needle’s Eye, which is a crack in the wall which you can climb some 75 feet up to the top, the Elephant Cave, which is a slightly larger cave. Then close to it, about midway up the wall is a cave ... the Ravens Den,” he said. “In the 1820s, that’s where ravens nested and that’s how it all got to be Ravenden Springs.”
The springs — there are five — were once thought to have curative powers. Carroll can tick them off — the Stomach Spring, the Eye Spring, the Heart Spring, the Arthritis Spring, the Kidney Spring. After Methodist minister William Bailey founded the town in 1880, it flourished as a spa and summer resort until the Depression Era.
Today, the springs, the canyon and the School Cave are part of private property and not open to the public. Carroll and the Randolph County Tourism Association are hoping the out-of-state owner will work with them to preserve the property, possibly as an Arkansas heritage park.