Thorncrown Chapel

Growing up in southeast Kansas, we took many trips to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. However, all of those family road trips were during the 60s and early 70s.  Because it’s been over 40 years since I’ve visited northwest Arkansas, a weekend trip was now long overdue.  So this last weekend we took a leisurely road trip down south.  Getting away from home provided a much-needed break.  But it also gave me a chance to take pictures in a different location. This was an opportunity to revisit many of the spots that shaped my childhood memories.  And in doing so, I could capture images of places to preserve those memories.

I’ll share some of those images in the next few days. However, before I get to those “memories”, I want to focus on a new place we visited. I’m a big fan of prairie-style architecture, and I was really wowed by the beautiful Thorncrown Chapel in the woods outside of Eureka Springs.

The first paragraph of the chapel’s brochure provides a perfect description:

Nestled in a woodland setting, Thorncrown Chapel rises forty-eight feet into the Ozark sky.  This magnificent wooden structure contains 425 windows and over 6,000 square feet of glass. It sits atop over 100 tons of native stone and colored flagstone. The chapel’s simple design and majestic beauty combine to make it what critics have called “one of the finest religious spaces of modern times.”