Ten old structures across the state -- from homes and depots to bridges and schools -- were declared "Arkansas' Most Endangered Historic Places" Tuesday by the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas.
"Our historic structures are like our family Bibles and our old letters," said Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller, who announced the list at the state Capitol. "They deserve our attention simply for what they can tell us about the past."
For years the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C., has released a list of the nation's top 11 endangered historic sites. Central High School in Little Rock was on that list in 1996. Last year the Quapaw Quarter Association in Little Rock followed suit with a similar citywide list of endangered historic sites.
Issuance of the statewide list, compiled for the first time this year, is expected to become an annual event.
"This is a way for us to prioritize statewide, to see what needs immediate attention and what can wait another year," said Jim Walsmith, executive director of the preservation alliance, a private, nonprofit organization. "This is a statewide project, and it's going to take statewide attention."
The list was created from nominations sent in by people from around the state. A panel of historians, architects and preservationists made the selections.
To be considered, sites had to be at least 50 years old, listed on the National Register of Historic Places or eligible to be listed by not having been relocated or substantially altered.
"They were chosen according to the degree and the imminence of the threat to them," said Cheri Nichols, who led the group making selections.
Treece House
Around 1876, A.M. Byrnes, the contractor who worked on the University of Arkansas' Old Main, had some leftover lumber. Rather than let it go to waste, he built a Queen Anne-style wood-frame cottage at 113 W. Lafayette St. in Fayetteville and a similar one next door.
This house was sold in 1919 to Hattie and James Treece, who lived there with their children until 1922, when James Treece's job took them to Batesville and they rented out the house. The two cottages remained, and a grocery store was later built on the other side.
One day in 1933, a daughter of the Treece's tenants, 7-year-old Wanda Montgomery, walked next door to Brown's grocery for a loaf of bread. As she was about to go inside the red-brick, two-story building, she was knocked to the ground by the infamous outlaw Clyde Barrow, fleeing after robbing the store of $20.
Four years later the Treeces returned, and their 91-year-old son, Clyde, lives there today. He attended Tuesday's announcement about the sites.
"I hope they save it," Treece said of his home. Old age or failing health may soon require him to move elsewhere and sell it.
Woodman of Union Building
More commonly called the National Baptist Hotel, the four-story, red brick Classical Revival commercial building at 501 Malvern Ave. in Hot Springs was built in 1923 by a black fraternal organization, the Woodman of Union. Inside was a 100-bed hospital and nurse training school, a 75-room bath hotel, a bank, a printing plant, offices and a 2,500 seat auditorium. It retains much of its rich history -- including its bank vault, marble wainscoting and trim, bathhouse stalls and fixtures, and auditorium -- but has deteriorated and been condemned.
In 1950, the building was bought by the National Baptist Association, U.S.A., and became the National Baptist Hotel and Bath House. As segregation ended and blacks and whites began sharing public facilities, the hotel's popularity dwindled, and it closed in 1981.
Old River Bridge
Built in 1889 across the Saline River southwest of Benton on the Old Military Road, the Old River Bridge is one of the oldest remaining iron bridges in the state.
It remained open until a truck loaded with concrete severely damaged the floor in 1974. Since then, a lack of maintenance and the inevitable rust have taken their toll. State Sen. Doyle Webb, R-Benton, nominated the bridge to the top-10 list. Preservationists, noting its importance to the area's history, suggest it be restored and used as a pedestrian path.
Old Hotze House
The 130-year-old crumbling white house, seemingly out of place at the busy inner-city intersection of West 17th and Main streets in Little Rock, came close to having its long history reduced to splinters in January when a tornado leveled the Harvest Foods supermarket across the street.
The small, wood-frame house was spared from nature that night but is being destroyed by the elements, a little each day.
Peter Hotze, an Austrian immigrant who moved to Little Rock in 1857, built this house for himself in 1869. Its symmetrical floor plan resembles the Jeffersonian Classic style of Trapnall Hall, and the exterior exemplifies early Victorian architecture with Italian Renaissance elements.
When Hotze built his house, it sat on a country road dotted with the stumps of the trees felled to clear the path. His son, Frederick, would recall his father's memories of the area in an article in the Arkansas Gazette in October 1960.
"There was what you might call a cow path or trail on the side of the road where father walked every evening when he was returning to his home," Frederick Hotze said. "He told that he often heard owls hoot and a few times heard a wolf howling."
Suzanne Gates, who owns the old Hotze House with her husband, Stephen, said the house's small size, coupled with its commercial location, has made it difficult to find an appropriate use for it. The couple also owns an adjacent larger brick house built later by Peter Hotze. The larger house is now a bed and breakfast.
West Side Junior High
In 1991, after struggling for years to sell an old three-story brick school, completed in 1919 at West 14th and Marshall streets, the Little Rock School District considered demolishing it to build a Martin Luther King Jr. elementary school on the site.
After preservationists and the Central High School Neighborhood Association protested, the district agreed instead to sell the 90,500 square-foot school in 1996 to the Volunteers of America, a nonprofit, private group that planned to convert the building into a combination residential, office, and community-use center. After that deal fell through, the Central Little Rock Community Development Corp., another private, nonprofit organization, bought the building last year.
Current plans include developing the school into business offices and possibly retail space.
Union Depot
Brinkley's depot, built in 1912, speaks of the city's early history as a railroad town. It is thought to be among the last examples in the state of a junction-type station, one used by more than one railroad for passenger service.
In July 1997, the Central Delta Historical Society began campaigning to stop the depot's owner, the Union Pacific Railroad, from demolishing the depot, which the railroad said was beyond repair and dangerously close to the tracks for donation to an outside entity.
Those wishing to save the station argued that because the depot was a junction, it was actually set farther from the tracks than others.
Union Pacific now plans to donate the depot to the city or the Central Delta Historical Society. Until the rail company does so, the depot remains endangered, preservationists say.
Blues haunts
Many buildings in the state associated with black culture have been destroyed, and little or no information exists about those that remain, preservationists say.
One exception is the turn-of-the-century red house at 819 N. Main St. in Brinkley, the home of Louis Jordan's aunt, Lizzie Reid. Jordan spent much of his childhood there while his father, Jim, toured as a musician.
Louis Jordan, who reached the height of his popularity in the 1940s, had 55 Top 10 hits, including "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens," which held the No. 1 spot for 35 weeks in 1946. The title became a popular expression across the country.
Other endangered blues-related sites in Brinkley include the White Swan honky-tonk, where many early blues musicians performed, and the Marion Anderson High School.
Chism Log House
This antebellum log home was built north of Booneville around 1845 by Dr. Stephen Howard Chism for his bride and is one of the few remaining two-story, log dogtrot-style houses in the state. The house, constructed of hardwood logs, sits on the east side of Arkansas 23 in the Chismville community. It is the oldest-known log residence in Logan County and suffers from deterioration.
From 1848 to 1853 the house contained the doctor's practice and home as well as the local post office and store.
With no ideas of how to use the building and no money for its maintenance or restoration, it continues to decay.
Fielder House
The log house known as Fielder House was built in what now is Fordyce around 1875, predating the town itself. And it gives a glimpse into how houses evolve over generations.
Originally built by Eldon Hawkins Fielder as a one-pen structure, it later became a dogtrot in the 1880s and finally a house with a central hall around 1910.
In the winter of 1915 and 1916, the early 20th century novelist Harold Bell Wright visited his father, who was living in the house at the time. It is believed Wright wrote all or part of his novel Trail of the Lonesome Pine during his stay there.
The Main Street Association of Fordyce would like to restore the neglected site as an original homestead farm and use it for education and tourism.
Russey-Murray House
This antebellum modified saltbox-style house built in 1851 by John Russey near Center Point in Howard County is one of the oldest brick houses in the state.
Russey moved his wife, seven children and two slaves to Arkansas from Tennessee in the 1830s. About 1840, he settled in what is now Howard County, built the first mercantile store in Center Point, and became the first postmaster eight years later.