Arkansas Highway 59 runs through the city, leading north to Noel, Missouri, and south to Gravette.

[5] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 1.0 square mile (2.6 km2), all land.

In 1921, Walter R. Eaton, a retired oilman, established the colony with $25,000 capital[8] (equivalent to about $436,200 in 2024) as an intellectual and artistic recreation-based cooperative: people would buy a plot of land and agree to work in community-held ventures with the proceeds going toward their vacation expenses in the colony.

[10] Eaton, as president of the Ozark League Commission, also collaborated with neighboring tourist towns such as Eureka Springs to promote and market the home products and handicrafts made at the colony.

[11] The colony had more than 40 cottages, a Grecian theater with classical recitals and costumed performers,[12][13] a lodge with a dance floor and disco ball,[14] manmade lakes stocked with trout for fishing, tennis courts, and a swimming pool.

[10] Artist, cabinet-maker, and resident Jim Sease made a totem pole[18] (which were fashionable in tourist and resort areas at the time), telling the community's history, from a generalized nod to native Americans, to the four springs for which Sulphur Springs is named, then the railroad and airplanes, and a modern city with resort hotels and John Brown University.