Arts

Subcategories:
Clear

Entry Category: Arts

Hotel Pines

The Hotel Pines, located at the northwest corner of Main Street and West 5th Avenue in downtown Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), was conceived and built to attract more business to the section of Main Street that lies to the south of the city’s railroad tracks. As such, it provides a glimpse at one effort to alter a city’s main business and shopping area in the early twentieth century. This classically designed hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 10, 1979. Since the area north of the tracks was a thriving commercial area, the city’s Main Street property owners believed that the presence of a modern hotel would lure business south of the tracks. Many of …

Hotze House

At the beginning of the twentieth century, prominent cotton broker and financier Peter Hotze commissioned Little Rock (Pulaski County) architect Charles L. Thompson to erect a stately residence for his family at 1619 Louisiana Street. Born in Innsbruck, Austria, on October 12, 1836, to Wolfgang Reinart Hotze and Mary Sophia Hotze, Peter Hotze was primarily raised by his mother after his father’s death. Upon his mother’s death in 1856, Peter and his brother Conrad immigrated to America, moving to Little Rock in 1857. Hotze then enlisted in the Capital Guards, which later became Company A of the Sixth Arkansas Infantry Regiment, a Confederate force. In 1864, Hotze was captured and became a prisoner of war at an Ohio camp, where …

House at 712 North Mill Street

Sometime between 1900 and 1904, Tennessee-born Gustavus (Gus) Rugel; his wife, Effie; and their five children moved from Mesquite, Texas, to Springdale (Washington and Benton counties), where they purchased forty-eight acres of farmland along Mill Street on the north side of town. Rugel had been a hardware dealer in Texas; in Springdale, he made his living as a fruit grower. In May 1913, Gus and Effie Rugel subdivided part of their farm to create the Rugel Addition, ten residential lots fronting Mill Street. In May 1914, Leroy Davis and Fanny Mae Davis bought Lot 6 in the Rugel Addition for $350. Within two months, the Davises sold Lot 6 for $2,000, evidence of a major improvement to the property—a Craftsman-style …

Howard County Courthouse

The Howard County Courthouse is located on 421 North Main Street. It stands at the gateway of downtown Nashville (Howard County), which encompasses the city’s commercial and government districts. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the two-story building as architecturally and historically significant, as it stands as a visible result of the New Deal policies of the 1930s. The National Park Service added it to the National Register of Historic Places on June 14, 1990. At the county’s creation in 1873, the Nineteenth Arkansas General Assembly made Center Point (Howard County) the county seat due to its convenient geographical location. Meanwhile, the economic hub centered on Nashville, with cotton, wool, and peaches driving economic output. After the Arkansas and Louisiana …

Howard, John Miller

John Miller Howard was an African-American artist and arts educator who founded the Art Department and taught at Arkansas AM&N—now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB)—from 1939 until his death in 1980. At AM&N, he worked to provide a top-quality arts education to his students, many of whom came from rural backgrounds and lacked exposure to art. Howard was recognized as a gifted painter and teacher. His life and work form an important chapter in the history of art in Arkansas. John Miller Howard was born in Alcorn, Mississippi, on September 22, 1908, to Lillie Howard, a young single mother who nurtured his early talent for drawing. He grew up in Brookhaven, Mississippi, attending segregated schools. He graduated …

Howlin’ Wolf

aka: Chester Arthur Burnett
Chester Arthur Burnett, known as Howlin’ Wolf or Howling Wolf, was one of the most influential musicians of the post–World War II era. His electric blues guitar, backing his powerful, howling voice, helped shape rock and roll. Chester Burnett was born on June 10, 1910, in White Station, Mississippi, four miles northeast of West Point, Mississippi, to Leon “Dock” Burnett, a sharecropper, and Gertrude Jones. His parents separated when he was one year old; his father moved to the Mississippi Delta to farm, and he and his mother moved to Monroe County, Mississippi, where she became an eccentric religious singer who performed and sold self-penned spirituals on the street. Burnett got the nickname “Wolf” because his grandfather would scare the youngster by telling …

Hubert and Ionia Furr House

The Hubert and Ionia Furr House is located at 702 Desoto Avenue in Arkansas City (Desha County). Built in 1910 by local timber man Hubert Furr and wife, Ionia, the house was constructed in the Dutch Colonial Revival style. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, the home is also the only residence in Arkansas City that has face ornamental concrete block. Hubert Furr was born in Tennessee in 1875 and moved to Arkansas City in 1892. Furr was known as “the Hustling Real Estate and Timber Man of Desha County”; he seemed to be better versed in timber values than any other person in the county. Furr had become one of the most influential residents of Desha …

Hudson-Grace-Borreson House

aka: Hudson-Grace-Pearson House
The Hudson-Grace-Borreson House, also known as the Hudson-Grace-Pearson House, is located on Barraque Street near historic downtown Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 24, 1971, due to its architectural significance, as it is a unique blend of Greek Revival, Victorian, and New Orleans French styles. Its occupants over the years were also of historical significance to both the community of Pine Bluff and the state of Arkansas. The original house was built by William and Jane Woodruff around 1830. The home was designed as having one story, but it was remodeled and expanded to two stories in 1860 by Marion and Emily Hudson. It was purchased at a tax …

Hudson-Jones House

The Hudson-Jones House is an antebellum home located in the Manchester community east of Arkadelphia (Clark County). It was constructed around 1840, and six outbuildings from the period also exist on the property. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 30, 1982. The land around Manchester was purchased by the Somerville Land Company in 1836, the same year that Arkansas became a state. The next year, Thomas Hudson, a member of the company, moved to the area. He built a two-story log cabin and began to operate a farm. In 1840, Hudson began construction on a new home. A carpenter known only as Mr. Pryor was hired to lead the construction project. The house …

Hughes Hall (Arkansas Tech University)

aka: Rock Armory
Hughes Hall, located at 514 West M Street on the Arkansas Tech University campus in Russellville (Pope County), is a two-story, U-shaped stone masonry building constructed with assistance from the WPA (the Works Progress Administration, renamed the Works Projects Administration in 1939), a Depression-era federal relief program. Constructed in 1940, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 18, 1992. The campus of Arkansas Polytechnic College (now Arkansas Tech University) comprised seventeen major buildings, including several dormitories that the U.S. Office of Education deemed “unfit for human habitation,” when Joseph W. Hull became the college’s eighth president in January 1932 and embarked on a major building campaign. After receiving assistance from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and …

Hursley, Timothy Joseph

Timothy Joseph Hursley is an architectural photographer whose works have been featured in architectural journals and museums around the world. Tim Hursley was born on July 19, 1955, in Detroit, Michigan, the fifth of nine children, to Frank and Lois Hursley. His father was a tool engineer, and his mother sold women’s shoes. At age sixteen, he began doing yard work for a neighbor, Balthazar Korab, a pioneer in modern architectural photography. Within three months, while still attending Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield, Michigan, Hursley had become Korab’s part-time photographic assistant and apprentice. From 1971 to 1980, Hursley’s apprenticeship taught him the craft of large-format photography and black-and-white photographic printing. As Hursley advanced in photo assignments, Korab’s approach to …

Hynson, Hazel Shanks

Hazel Shanks Hynson was a classically trained pianist who served as the choir director at Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and taught many musicians in her studio who went on to be well known. Hazel Shanks was born on August 8, 1903, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Christopher Columbus Shanks, who worked as an insurance auditor, and Luna Craig Shanks; she had one younger brother. She attended private schools, studying music, and she received her bachelor’s degree in music, with a major in piano, from Atlanta University. She later traveled to England to pursue further musical studies at Oberlin College in Ohio and at the University of London. She also studied at the renowned Juilliard School in New …

Hyten, Charles Dean

Charles Dean “Bullet” Hyten was a master potter and the originator of the famous Niloak Pottery. Although he was not the first pottery maker in Saline County, his patented swirl technique and use of locally sourced clay gave his pottery a unique look. Because Hyten’s pottery-making process was a trade secret, his creations became valuable historic artifacts. Charles Hyten was born in Benton (Saline County) on March 14, 1877, to John F. Hyten and Hattie E. Brown Hyten. His father, a potter by trade, had moved the family to Benton around 1876. There, he opened a pottery business and continued working until his death in 1881 following an illness. Hattie Hyten, widowed with four children, married Frank Woosley, who had …

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Building (Benton)

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Building in Benton (Saline County) stands at 123–125 North Market Street in the Benton Commercial Historic District. Constructed in 1913 by E. Y. Stinson, the building was purchased by IOOF Lodge 174 in 1914 for use as a meeting hall. The building originally housed a jewelry store, but it later began housing both the Saline County History and Heritage Society and the Saline County Republican Headquarters. The large two-story building is located directly across from the historic Saline County Courthouse and is constructed mainly of red bricks and concrete. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 2004. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows was founded in …

International Harvester Servicenter

The International Harvester Servicenter at 1124 Military Road in Benton (Saline County) is a one-story concrete-block building designed by Raymond Loewy for the International Harvester Company as a showroom and repair center. The building was built circa 1945 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 23, 2020. The International Harvester Company (IHC) was founded in 1902 and brought together some of the most talented engineers of the time. Although the tractor industry was just getting started at the time, the International Harvester Company took an early leadership role in the industry. One of the key players in the designs of these tractors was noted industrial designer Raymond Loewy. Before Loewy’s involvement in the design of …

Interstate Orphanage

aka: Ouachita Children’s Center
aka: Interstate Orphans’ Home
aka: Hot Springs Children's Home
aka: Hot Springs Orphans' Home
The Interstate Orphans’ Home—today known as the Ouachita Children’s Center—is located at 339 Charteroak Street in Hot Springs (Garland County). It was the first institution in Hot Springs to care for orphans and other destitute children. The Craftsman-style brick structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Interstate Orphanage in 1982 and is attributed to noted Arkansas architect Charles L. Thompson. Throughout its history, the nonprofit facility has been called the Interstate Orphans’ Home, Hot Springs Orphans’ Home, Hot Springs Children’s Home, and Ouachita Children’s Center. In 1910, a home located at 322 Morrison in Hot Springs was organized to care for the area’s needy children. By 1918, a large, white wood-frame house was acquired for …

Izard County Courthouse

The Izard County Courthouse is located off Highway 69. It joins adjacent streets of Lunen, Court, and Spring to form Courthouse Square in Melbourne (Izard County). The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the two-story building as architecturally and historically significant for its Art Deco style and association with a New Deal program, the National Youth Administration (NYA). The National Park Service added it to the National Register of Historic Places on September 30, 1993. This was not the first structure in Melbourne to house county business. After the county seat moved in 1875 from Mount Olive (Izard County) to Melbourne, the county used a large barn until a two-story structure was erected in 1878 on the present site. A fire …

J. V. Bell House

The J. V. Bell House stands at 303 West Cherry Street in Jonesboro (Craighead County). Built in 1895, the Bell House stands as an example of the typical Victorian-era residence, with its high, multiple roof suggesting a Queen Anne influence, and its cut-out stars and moons and sunburst ornamentation incorporating a distinct Oriental flavor. The Bell House was entered on the National Register of Historic Places on November 7, 1976. John Vernon Bell moved to Jonesboro in the late 1800s and owned and operated one of the city’s first bookstores. Later, he became secretary of Jonesboro Savings and Loan. In 1919, Thomas Hardy purchased the house from Bell. Hardy added two rooms to the upstairs, thus boxing in the back …

Jack Tar Hotel and Bathhouse

aka: Garland Tower
The Jack Tar Hotel and Bathhouse is a historic hotel built in the International style located on Oriole Street in Hot Springs (Garland County). The building was constructed in 1950 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 21, 2006. Hot Springs was a popular resort location in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to the supposed medicinal properties of the numerous springs located in the area. The growing use of the automobile in the early twentieth century led more visitors to the city, and numerous businesses were created to support this rise in tourism. Park Avenue served as a major thoroughfare into the city from the north, and many restaurants and motels opened along …