Historic Preservation

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Entry Category: Historic Preservation - Starting with C

Carroll County Courthouse, Western District

The Carroll County Courthouse, Western District in Eureka Springs (Carroll County) was built in 1908 from a design by local builder William Octavos Perkins and reflects the Italianate style of architecture. After Carroll County was created in 1833, its first seat of justice was in the home of William Sneed Jr., located between Carrollton (Carroll County) and Osage (Carroll County). Carrolton was selected as the county seat, and a two-story log courthouse was built in 1836, serving until a more substantial brick building was erected in 1844–1845. Fire destroyed that courthouse in the winter of 1859–1860, and a new one was not built until 1865 after the end of the Civil War. That building burned a year later, and a …

Carroll County Historical and Genealogical Society

On September 6, 1955, a group of citizens consisting of Alice Baker Gentry, Ruth Trimble, Lois Stubbs, Cora Pinkley Call, Frances McClelland, Coy Logan, Boyd W. Johnson, and Edwin L. Chaplin met in the Methodist church in Berryville (Carroll County) with Ted Worley, executive secretary of the Arkansas History Commission (now called the Arkansas State Archives). The purpose of this meeting was to make plans for organizing a historical society in Carroll County. During this meeting, Worley discussed the early history of Carroll County, the importance of preserving early records of the county, and how other county historical societies had been organized and managed. The next meeting was set for September 29, 1955, at the county library for the purpose …

Carrollton Road

The Carrollton Road was part of an east-west road that crossed northern Arkansas in the 1830s and is noteworthy as one of the few documented roads used by the John Benge Detachment of Cherokee during the Indian Removal of the late 1830s. A segment of the road survives today. The Cherokee Removal detachment led by Captain John Benge initially consisted of 1,079 people and seventy wagons, though others would join the group as it headed west. The detachment departed from Fort Payne, Alabama, in late September and early October 1838. It crossed into Tennessee and later crossed the Mississippi River at Iron Banks in Kentucky. Traveling west and southwest through Missouri on the Military Road, the detachment crossed into Arkansas …

Carver Gymnasium

The Carver Gymnasium, located at 400 Ferguson Street in Lonoke (Lonoke County), is the last remaining structure associated with the town’s first African-American school. The plain-traditional-style concrete block construction building was added to the National Register on September 23, 2009, under Criterion A, due to its significance to local African-American history. In 1889, Goodspeed’s history documented that Lonoke was home to two schools, one for white students and one for “colored people.” A total of 1,640 African-American students were recorded in the county. The African-American school consisted of a two-story frame structure. It provided educational opportunities for grades one through eight. Attendance was sporadic due to the vast majority of students living and working on farms. In the fall of …

Case-Shiras-Dearmore House

The Case-Shiras-Dearmore House, located at 351 East 4th Street in Mountain Home (Baxter County), is a two-story wood-frame house in the Plain Traditional style, with a cut-stone outbuilding located to the rear (west side) of the house. The house is perhaps best known for its association with the noted Baxter County newspaper publisher Tom Shiras of the Baxter Bulletin. However, it was also the home of Dr. J. H. Case, the first dentist in Mountain Home. The Case-Shiras-Dearmore House was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 3, 1992. The ell-shaped, intersecting gable roof plan of the main house features a historic gable roof addition at its northern end. The front (east) façade consists of a gable …

Castleberry-Harrington Historic District

The Castleberry-Harrington Historic District in Republican (Faulkner County) consists of three Mixed-Masonry houses, all rocked by mason Silas Owens Sr. of Twin Groves (Faulkner County). The district, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 2007, contains the Loyd and Willie Castleberry Cottage, the Hinkle and Ermon Castleberry House, and the Wilbur and Mary Harrington House. It is an example of a rural farm family compound featuring rockwork by Owens. The homes were built using local sandstone for economy and exhibit the typical low, Craftsman styling of rural post–World War II houses in Arkansas. Owens was a rock mason who was well known in central Arkansas for his meticulous coursing method and his work ethic. …

Cathedral of St. Andrew

aka: St. Andrew's Catholic Cathedral
The Cathedral of St. Andrew is the oldest continuing place of worship in Little Rock (Pulaski County). It was dedicated in 1881 by Bishop Edward Fitzgerald, the second bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock. Built in Gothic Revival style, the Cathedral of St. Andrew is made of rusticated granite mined from the Fourche Mountains, the northern section of the Ouachita Mountains. The structure, which was designed by architect Thomas Harding, is located at 617 South Louisiana Street, between 6th and 7th streets. Seating a maximum of 450, it is a comparatively small Catholic cathedral. The bell tower contains a 3,400-pound bell, the heaviest in Pulaski County. The bell tower stands 231 feet tall and was completed in …

CCC Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District

The CCC Company 3767 Powder Magazine Historic District, located near Jessieville in Garland County, consists of two small stone and concrete structures originally constructed to store powder and blasting caps for use by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 2007. Civilian Conservation Corps Company 3767 was established on June 1, 1935, in Warrensburg, Missouri, and moved to Jessieville on July 8, 1935. The company built the powder magazine and blasting cap magazine to store explosives for use on road and bridge construction or conservation projects within the Ouachita National Forest. Company 3767 was transferred to Camp Hollis in Perry County in December 1936. The powder magazine is the …

CCC Company 741 Powder Magazine Historic District

The CCC Company 741 Powder Magazine Historic District, located near Norman (Montgomery County), consists of two small stone and concrete structures originally constructed to store powder and blasting caps for use by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) while working on projects in the Ouachita National Forest. The CCC was established in 1933 as part of a New Deal effort to provide jobs while accomplishing important natural resource conservation projects during the Great Depression. There were 106 CCC camps established in Arkansas. Civilian Conservation Corps Company 741, the oldest CCC company in the Arkansas District, was formed on May 1, 1933, at Camp Pike and moved to Crystal Springs Camp on May 17, 1933. Four side camps were established from the …

CCC Company 749 Powder Magazine

The CCC Company 749 Powder Magazine is located north of Forest Service Road 4128 and south of Briggsville in Yell County. Company 749 of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built the structure around 1933 to store explosives (powder or blasting caps) for its work in the rugged forests of the area. The CCC Company 749 Powder Magazine is a small stone and concrete structure originally constructed for use by the Civilian Conservation Corps working in the Ouachita National Forest. The square building measures six feet on each side. It is five feet high with a four-inch-thick concrete top and a concrete floor. The cut-stone and concrete walls vary from six to eleven inches in thickness. Civilian Conservation Corps Company 749 …

Cedar Creek Bridge

aka: Goodie Creek Bridge
The Cedar Creek Bridge, located on Independence County Road 235 where it crosses Cedar Creek about one and a half miles south of its intersection with Arkansas Highway 14 near Rosie (Independence County), is a stone, closed-spandrel deck arch bridge. It was constructed in 1941 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era public relief agency. The road to the site of the Cedar Creek Bridge did not appear on Arkansas maps until 1936, five years before the structure was erected, indicating it was likely the location of a ford. Independence County leaders turned to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal for funding to improve this and other roads throughout the county during the Great Depression. On January 29, 1940, …

Cedar Grove Cemetery (Johnson County)

aka: Mason Cemetery
aka: Darnell Cemetery
The Cedar Grove Cemetery near Clarksville (Johnson County), not to be confused with cemeteries of the same name in Boone and Scott counties, was used by the initial settlers of the area and is located between the Interior Highlands of the Boston Mountains and the Arkansas River Valley of Arkansas. The cemetery is currently covered with overgrowth of vegetation. The graves have recessed, and many of the headstones have been toppled. Also, there are small trees and shrubs growing throughout the area both near and over marked gravesites. According to tradition, early white settlers founded the cemetery. Unevenly cut headstones carved from local sandstone were used as grave markers, although some no longer have readable markings. It is unknown what …

Cedar Grove School No. 81

Located five miles north of Pocahontas (Randolph County) in the Brockett community is the Cedar Grove School No. 81. The school opened after a redistricting of Randolph County school districts in 1890 and offered classes through the eighth grade. The original school building served the local community until it was destroyed by a tornado on March 30, 1938. The building that replaced it held classes until the school district consolidated with the Pocahontas School District in 1949. After consolidation, the building served for a time as a meeting place for the Brockett Home Extension Club and as a community building. Cedar Grove School No. 81 is a Greek Revival–style building with the original well house and outhouse. The well house …

Centennial Baptist Church

The 1905 Gothic Revival Centennial Baptist Church, located at York and Columbia streets in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County), was listed as a National Historic Landmark on July 31, 2003. The building serves as a physical symbol of the work of the Reverend Elias Camp Morris. Morris dedicated his life to furthering the religious, political, and societal achievements of African Americans locally and nationally through his work as president and founder of the National Baptist Convention. Centennial Baptist is the only remaining structure associated with the productive life of Morris, who was pastor of the congregation in an earlier building on the site in 1879 and continued serving at the 1905 Centennial Baptist Church until his death in 1922. Morris’s outreach …

Centennial History of Arkansas

Dallas Tabor Herndon’s three-volume Centennial History of Arkansas (1922) was created in the early days of the Arkansas History Commission (AHC), now the Arkansas State Archives. Herndon, the AHC’s first director, wrote that “the state had no history that could be relied upon as authentic,” and he saw a need for a more “comprehensive state history” to aid him in his work with researchers at the AHC. Herndon believed that his history would be more reliable and accessible than any other before it, such as Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Fay Hempstead’s multi-volume Historical Review of Arkansas, published in 1911, when Herndon first began work at the AHC. Unlike Hempstead, Herndon was not from Arkansas, and thus he believed his …

Central Arkansas Library System

The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) is the largest library system in Arkansas. Created in 1975, the system includes fourteen libraries located in Pulaski and Perry counties. The first public library to open in central Arkansas was the Little Rock Public Library in 1910. Earlier efforts to create libraries in the city included the library of the Little Rock Debating Society in the 1830s and newspaper publisher William Woodruff’s circulating library in the 1840s. After the Civil War, the Mercantile Library opened in the city and was available to professional men. After a merger with the Marquand Library, created for use by employees of the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad, the library was acquired by the Young Men’s Christian …

Central Delta Depot Museum

The Central Delta Depot Museum in Brinkley (Monroe County) is an initiative of the Central Delta Historical Society, which was organized in the 1990s to preserve the history and heritage of the central Delta area. The museum’s scope covers all of Monroe and parts of Woodruff, St. Francis, Prairie, Lee, Phillips, and Arkansas counties. Louise Mitchell, a Kingsland (Cleveland County) native who had taught at Brinkley High School, served as the first president of the Central Delta Historical Society and editor of its journal from 1997 to 2001. In 1999, she led a letter-writing campaign—directed to Union Pacific officials, President Bill Clinton, the area’s congressmen, and others—to save Brinkley’s Union Train Station from destruction so a museum could be established. …

Central High School Neighborhood Historic District

Made nationally famous during the 1957 desegregation crisis, Central High School in Little Rock (Pulaski County) is surrounded by a historic neighborhood district that also bears its name. Central High is both an active high school and a museum protected under the National Park Service as a National Historic Landmark. The surrounding historical district is primarily made up of residential structures and is divided by Wright Avenue, a road historically used by trolleys. Residences in this neighborhood display primarily the Craftsman Bungalow, Tudor Revival, and Colonial Revival styles. The original district—roughly bounded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive on the east, Thayer Avenue on the west, West 12th Street on the north, and Roosevelt Road on the south—was added …

Central Theater

Built in the 1930s, the historic Central Theater is located at 1008 Central Avenue in downtown Hot Springs (Garland County). It is said to be the oldest stage and motion picture theater in Hot Springs. Chris Rix acquired the property in 2020 and set about restoring it, upgrading HVAC, safety mechanisms, and technical systems to modern standards. Many of the original Art Deco design elements from the 1930s can still be seen in the auditorium, which seats more than 300 people. The 10,000-square-foot Central Theater building was constructed in the 1930s as a garage; pillars remain where the garage doors once were. The building was converted to a theater in 1937. It presented first-run movies through the post–World War II …

Charles “Bullet” Dean Hyten House

The house at 211 South Main Street in Benton (Saline County) was the home of Niloak Pottery creator Charles Dean “Bullet” Hyten. Now owned by former Arkansas state senator Doyle L. Webb II, the house is home to a small business. Because of its connection with Hyten and construction at the height of his popularity, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 24, 2012. Charles Dean Hyten was born in Benton to John Franklin Hyten and Hattie Brown Hyten on March 14, 1877. He was one of four children. After the death of her husband in 1881, Hattie married a man named Frank Woosley. Hyten and his brothers, Paul and Lee, took control of the family …