Entries - Entry Category: Historic Preservation - Starting with W

A number of markers and memorials to service members who served in World War II are located across Arkansas. While some of the monuments are standalone structures, others include World War II veterans alongside service members from other conflicts, including World War I and the Vietnam War. Monuments across the state also memorialize individuals, units, and ships with Arkansas connections. Two of the earliest monuments erected in the state after the war memorialize fallen men in both world wars. Dedicated in 1947 and located at the Old Scott County Courthouse in Waldron (Scott County), one such monument consists of a marble column topped with an eagle and lists the names of men lost in the wars. The next year, the …

Ted Raymond Worley was a historian, teacher, editor of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, and executive secretary of the Arkansas History Commission, as well as a prolific writer. Ted R. Worley was born on June 1, 1906, in Pope County to Ernest C. Worley and Dollie Koone Worley. After graduating from Russellville High School, he attended Arkansas State Teachers College (which later became the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway (Faulkner County), earning his degree in 1934. He received his master’s degree at the University of Texas in 1939. Worley taught at a rural Pope County school and schools at Pottsville (Pope County) and at Bald Knob (White County) while working on those degrees. He also worked toward a doctorate at …

Mary Fletcher Worthen was a cultural leader, volunteer, historian, and author whose life spanned an era of great changes in her home state of Arkansas. Mary Fletcher was born on October 6, 1917, on Fletcher Farm near Scott (Pulaski and Lonoke counties) to Tom Fletcher and Mamie Sandlin Fletcher. She was part of an old Arkansas family, as her great-great-grandparents—Henry Lewis Fletcher and Mary Lindsey Fletcher—arrived in what became Arkansas in 1815. Worthen was home-schooled until the ninth grade and attended one semester at East Side Junior High. She graduated from Little Rock High School (later called Central High) and Little Rock Junior College (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock). Inspired by her cousin Adolphine Fletcher Terry, she …

The Wynn-Price House is a historic Greek Revival–style home in Garland (Miller County). It is considered one of the best surviving examples of antebellum plantation homes in the state. William Wynn moved to the Red River area of the Arkansas Territory around 1835. Wynn eventually owned thousands of acres of land on both sides of the Red River, as well as almost 100 slaves. It appears that at least some of this land was purchased for speculation. Garland was at the proposed crossing of the Red River by the Mississippi, Ouachita, and Red River Railroad, which was never constructed, and Wynn placed the house along the major road of the day. The house was constructed circa 1844. The house is …

The Wynne Post Office at 402 East Merriman Avenue in Wynne (Cross County) is a one-story, brick-masonry structure designed in a restrained interpretation of the Art Deco style of architecture. It features a mural financed through the U.S. Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture (later renamed the Section of Fine Arts), a Depression-era stimulus project that promoted public art. The post office was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 14, 1998. On September 28, 1935, the Wynne Daily Star Progress reported that a lot on Merriman Avenue was picked as the site of a new post office for Wynne. The U.S. Department of the Treasury paid Lizzie Collins $6,000 for the property. A January 10, …

The Wynne Wholesale Commercial Historic District is situated around what was considered the most vibrant part of Wynne (Cross County) in the early 1900s. The district consists of five structures—four of which are contributing to the historical significance of the district—and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 25, 2010. The current building for the Wynne Municipal Waterworks was originally constructed sometime between 1904 and 1908 and altered between 1945 and 1951. The one-story building has a simple rectangular plan with a gabled roof. Two metal vents are centered along the ridge of the roof, and a stepped parapet adorns both the front and back elevations. The building rests on a continuous concrete foundation, and the …