Transportation was a problem in the early days. Pierce City, Missouri, eighty-four miles to the north, was the nearest railroad point. In 1880, the Eureka Springs liverymen established a stage line that connected with the Butterfield stage at Garfield. Eureka Springs was incorporated February 14, 1880. Elisha Rosson was the first mayor, but he did not remain in office but a few months. The second mayor, Mr. Carroll, took a census in May, 1881, and the population to said to have exceeded 8,000. In 1882, Eureka Springs was declared a city of the first class and ranked as one of the six largest cities of the state. Goodspeed, writing of this “Crazy Quilt” town about 1885, said: “Everywhere that an abode can be constructed, houses of every description, tents and shelters, sprang up all over the mountain tops, hanging by corners on the steep sides, perched upon jutting boulders, spanning gulches, or nestling under crags in the grottoes. It is a most peculiar looking place, presenting an apparent disregard to anything like order and arrangement.” The town had two disastrous fires in the eighties. The first one came early in the morning of November 3, 1883, destroying the business section on Mountain and Eureka streets. A fine drug store was located in the V-junction of Mountain and Eureka, a livery stable where the Christian Science church now stands, and a bakery across the street. The second big fire came in 1888 and burned the business section along Spring Street from Calip Spring to the Presbyterian Church. 480 houses were destroyed. Only four frame houses were left standing in the area. According to Goodspeed, T. J. Hadley brought a printing press from Olathe, Kansas in November, 1879 and established the first newspaper. The date of the first issue of the Echo is given as February 21, 1880. Within two or three years, the town had two additional newspapers, the Dispatch and the Herald. Eureka Springs has had its full share of legend and folklore and some of the fabulous tales are told with tongue in cheek. Take the marital swap of “Uncle” Adam and “Uncle” Dick. A couple called “Adam and Eve” lived in a rock shelter across the road from Johnson Spring. Dick and his wife occupied an adjoining shelter to the south. One day Adam traded Eve to Dick for his wife and got a horse and buggy and a dog to boot. Dick and his newly acquired wife left the country soon after the swap, but it is reported that the woman came back later and lived with Adam. This happened, according to the old timers, about the turn of the century. Vance Randolph, in Who Blowed Up the Church House?,[19] gives a different version of the wife-trading story. He heard the anecdote from an old timer in Eureka Springs about 1950. Here is his version: