Located on Lawrence County 107 just outside of Ravenden lies one of our favorite places and best kept secrets of our area, Wautauga Spring.
Wautauga Spring is a natural flowing roadside spring enjoyed by locals and others passing through our area.
To this day people from all over Northeast Arkansas stop at Wautauga to fill jugs and jars with some of the best natural spring water. If you spend any time at all at the site you will see visitors stopped along the side of the road filling their containers with the crystal clear water or drinking straight from the spout.
The spring has been a natural attraction in our area for decades and holds an interesting story. Charles “Buck” Sharp of Imboden told ImbodenLive that in the 1950’s the spring was just a little “dug out” area along the gravel road that locals kept cleaned and filled their buckets with drinking water. In the early 1960’s his father Eugene Sharp, Earnest Pickett and Clyde Pickett pooled their money together and built the original drinking fountain that stood until around 2003 for a total of around $13. The original fountain was a metal drum filled with concrete that was piped from the spring that flowed year around.
Steve Huddleston of Imboden and Butch Dail of Ravenden rebuilt the the roadside attraction to it’s current look around 2003 with some hard work and as Mr. Huddleston recalls some local donations collected by Butch Dail.
If your ever driving by County Road 107 in Arkansas stop and enjoy one of the best cold drinks of water to be had at Wautauga Spring. Thanks to all the people who spent their time and money to make this available to all. We are blessed to have this in our area and blessed to have good people who out of the kindness of their heart made it free to all. This is what makes it “One of Our Favorite Places”.
Enjoy the photo’s and video taken of Wautauga Spring below…..
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