The Rock House Cave and Saloon
 Osage Indians made their homes under rocky overhangs for centuries before early European explorers came seeking the legendary healing springs or American pioneers finally reached the vicinity where they identified and named the basin spring.
Hunters from nearby settlements, tracking deer and bear, encamped there also in early years of the 19th Century.
Alvah Jackson, a pioneer physician, of ten visited the Healing Spring and used its waters to treat disease.
The Civil War brought armies of both North and South into the vicinity and many skirmishes occurred. The Battle of Pea Ridge was fought just 20 miles away. Soldiers, either wounded in battle, or wore out from the stress of the war, were brought to the Indian Healing Spring. Dr. Jackson treated their wounds in a makeshift “Hospital” under the bluff which came to be called the Rock House. Tradition tells that the soldiers who came were both Confederate and Union and all received help from Dr. Jackson, assisted by the healing waters.
Health seekers arriving at Basin Spring in the 1880's found the rough sawn board enclosure under the bluff being used for a variety of purposes, including for a time, the Rock House Saloon. The present small limestone structure dates from about 1900.
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