Museums and Historic Sites

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Entry Category: Museums and Historic Sites - Starting with G

Galatia Church

The Galatia Church is a one-room, wood-framed structure located southeast of the town of Norfork (Baxter County). Constructed circa 1900, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 8, 2020. Although adjacent to the Galatia Church, the Galatia Cemetery was created several decades before the construction of the first church building on the site. Since its creation, the cemetery has grown to include private family areas as well as additional acreage. According to local oral tradition, the cemetery was in use by members of the Lackey family in the mid-nineteenth century. In February 1886, only three years before his death in 1889, Robert Lackey deeded ten acres of land for a church and cemetery to the …

Gangster Museum of America

The history of Hot Springs (Garland County) and its role in Arkansas and American history has, since 2008, been brought to life in the award-winning Gangster Museum of America, located at 510 Central Avenue in downtown Hot Springs. The museum was founded by Robert Raines, under the umbrella of Historical Attractions, Inc. (a for-profit corporation), and was the recipient of the 2009 Tourism of the Year Award in Garland County. It was also a 2011 Henry Award finalist in the Arkansas Heritage category. Although there are many artifacts and hundreds of photo exhibits, the museum experience is driven by a tour guide who navigates a series of eyewitness accounts on high-definition video presentations of those who lived through the “glory days” …

Gann House

The Gann House is among the oldest buildings still standing in Saline County. The Gann House also reportedly had the first indoor bathrooms in the city of Benton (Saline County). It was built in 1895 in the Queen Anne style as the private residence of prominent doctor and freemason Dr. Dewell Gann Sr. and his family. Gann was born on March 31, 1863, in Atlanta, Georgia. In Arkansas, his family became well known for its contributions to history and to the field of medical science. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 2, 1976, a few months after what is now the Gann Museum, immediately neighboring it on South Market Street in Benton, was …

Gann Museum of Saline County

The Gann Museum of Saline County, established in 1980, is located in a historical structure at 218 Market Street in Benton (Saline County). Housed in the old medical offices of doctors Dewell Gann Sr. and Dewell Gann Jr., it contains an extensive collection of Arkansas artifacts: Quapaw and Caddo Indian artifacts, Niloak and other pottery made in Saline County, memorabilia depicting early county history up to the present, industrial and manufacturing items, photographs, and old newspapers. It is an incorporated, nonprofit institution, governed by a committee of thirteen county residents. The Gann building is an architectural landmark. Built in 1893 as the office of Dr. Dewell Gann Sr., it is the only known building in existence that is constructed out …

Gann Row Historic District

The Gann Row Historic District was located three blocks from downtown Benton (Saline County). It contained thirteen homes constructed between 1880 and 1924. The district was named for Dr. Dewell Gann Sr., who rented homes on the property to local workers and their families. The oldest homes in the district were in the Folk Victorian style, while the dominant style was Craftsman. The Gann Row Historic District was bordered on the north by West Maple, on the east by South Main, on the south by West Pine, and on the west by South Market. The Gann Row Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 5, 1999. By 2017, all the houses but one, 418 …

Garland County Courthouse

The Garland County Courthouse is located at Ouachita Avenue and Hawthorne Street in Hot Springs (Garland County). The four-story brick building is recognized by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program to be both architecturally and historically significant, with one source calling it perhaps the finest example of Renaissance Revival–style architecture in the state. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. After the Civil War, Hot Springs grew into one of the nation’s leading health resorts. At that time, the county seat of Hot Spring County was in Rockport (Hot Spring County) near Malvern (Hot Spring County), a day-long trip for the citizens of Hot Springs. They urged the Arkansas General Assembly to create a new county, …

Garrott House

The Garrott House is the oldest surviving structure in Batesville (Independence County) and the first Batesville structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1971). The first house in Batesville’s School Addition, it was built in 1842 by Independence County pioneer George Case, who moved to Batesville from Ohio in 1837. A carpenter and cabinetmaker, Case built the house for his wife’s sister and her husband, Eliza (Ridgeway) and Robert Williams, who were also from Ohio. The house is of braced frame construction, its inner structure composed of squared logs mortised and pegged together at the base and top of each wall, each corner being “braced” by a diagonal log also mortised and pegged into the logs laid horizontally …

Gatewood House

The Gatewood House, designed in the Shingle architectural style, is gambrel-roofed home located in Malvern (Hot Spring County). Constructed in 1905, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 1992. The house was constructed by Matthew and Hannah Duffie for their daughter, Annie Sinney Duffie Gatewood. Amie married Edwin Lee Gatewood in Dallas County in 1893, and the couple had three children between 1894 and 1902. Edwin died in Beebe (White County) on April 14, 1905, and Annie lived in the home with her children, Anita, Edwin, and Estell. She died on March 2, 1947, and is buried with her husband in Malvern. The home is located at 235 Pine Bluff Street and faces north. …

Gay Oil Company Building

Located at 300 Broadway in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the Gay Oil Company Building is an example of an early twentieth-century Neoclassical-style office building. Constructed in 1925 and covering three lots, the building served as the headquarters for the Gay Oil Company. The business was founded to sell kerosene and various lubricating oils but expanded into the sale of gasoline and various items related to automobiles. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 2017. Thomas Jefferson Gay organized the Richardson-Gay Oil Company in Texas in 1903. Focused on refining oil, Gay sold his holdings in the business in 1905 and moved to Little Rock, where he founded the Gay Oil Company in 1907. …

Geographical Center of Arkansas Marker

The Geographic Center of Arkansas Marker was dedicated on April 12, 1936, as part of the state’s first centennial celebration. The marker was placed at a spot designated by the Arkansas Department of Transportation as the physical center of the state on Highway 5, then called the “Hot Springs Highway.” The presiding officers who participated in the dedication ceremony were Mrs. Charles H. Miller and Jeanne Weinmann, both representing the Colonel Samuel Cherry chapter of the Arkansas Society of the Daughters of American Colonists in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The Little Rock branch had been formed just four years before on January 29, 1932. That chapter was also responsible for a number of other historical markers across the state between 1928 …

George Berry Washington Memorial

The George Berry Washington Memorial, located near Earle (Crittenden County), is the burial place of a man born a slave who rose to become an African-American social leader and one of the largest landowners in the county in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. George Washington Jr. was born on December 25, 1864, the son of George Washington and Hanna Washington. His parents were both born in Kentucky and were possibly the slaves of James G. Berry, one of Crittenden County’s largest landowners, who moved to Arkansas from Kentucky as early as 1833. In May 1883, Washington—who now went by the name George Berry Washington—married eighteen-year-old Ella Rostelle. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, in 1886 and a second daughter, …

George Klein Tourist Court Historic District

aka: Klein Center
aka: Racheau Center
aka: Green Elf Court
The George Klein Tourist Court Historic District at 501 Morrison Avenue in Hot Springs (Garland County) is a well-preserved example of Craftsman-style roadside lodging. Built by 1939 as a tourist court and apartments consisting of seven bungalows around an octagonal two-story office building, it later became the Green Elf Court Apartments. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 8, 1993. Hot Springs was an established resort town before the Civil War because of the widespread belief that the hot springs had medicinal qualities. The first bathhouses predated the federal government reserving the land around the springs in 1832. Access to the area increased over time, first via a narrow-gauge railway from Malvern (Hot Spring …

George W. Mallett House

The George W. Mallett House is the only antebellum structure still standing in Princeton (Dallas County). Constructed in 1853 as a dogtrot house, the building has been modified over the decades. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 28, 1983. George Mallett was born in Mecklenburg, Virginia, on April 13, 1826, and moved to Arkansas in 1847. He worked as a tailor in Princeton. Before moving to Arkansas, George married Mary Smith in Virginia, and the couple had three sons and two daughters. Evidence suggests that the couple had another daughter who died as an infant. He entered politics and served as the county treasurer from 1852 to 1856. During the Civil War, he operated …

Gillham City Jail

The Gillham City jail is a small one-room jailhouse located in the town of Gillham (Sevier County). It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 27, 2012. In the 1890s, a railroad was constructed through the remote farming community, leading to the relocation of most of the population of the neighboring town of Silver Hill (Sevier County) to Gillham (originally known as Silver City but renamed after a railroad engineer). This large relocation led to a boom in the town, bringing a train depot, an ore mill, and a post office to the community. Commissioned by town officials and constructed in about 1914, the Gillham City Jail was typically used as a temporary holding place for …

Girls Domestic Science and Arts Building (Arkansas Tech University)

aka: Old Art Building (Arkansas Tech University)
aka: Browning Hall (Arkansas Tech University)
The Girls’ Domestic Science and Arts Building, located at 1505 North Boulder Avenue on the Arkansas Tech University campus in Russellville (Pope County), is a two-and-a-half-story brick building built in 1913 and rehabilitated in 1934–1935 with assistance from the Public Works Administration (PWA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 18, 1992. Arkansas Polytechnic College (which later became Arkansas Tech University) had seventeen major buildings, including several dormitories that the U.S. Office of Education deemed “unfit for human habitation” at the time Joseph W. Hull became the college’s eighth president in January 1932 and embarked on a major building campaign. In early 1934, the college received funding from the PWA—a …

Glenwood Iron Mountain Railroad Depot

The Glenwood Iron Mountain Railroad Depot is a former depot located in Glenwood (Pike County). Constructed around 1910 by the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 28, 1996. Glenwood was platted in 1907 when the railroad reached the area. The area around the town soon began to support a number of lumber mills, and the settlement grew rapidly. In order to ship the large amounts of timber from the area quickly, another rail line was laid in 1910. Few details from the construction are available. Although the building is currently a single-story frame structure on a concrete-block foundation, the depot was originally constructed with a central second …

Goodlett Gin

The Goodlett Gin is located at 799 Franklin Street in Historic Washington State Park in Washington (Hempstead County), once the county seat for Hempstead County and the last Confederate capital of the state of Arkansas. Constructed in 1883 in nearby Ozan (Hempstead County), the gin was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and moved to the park between 1978 and 1980 after it was purchased by the state. Reassembled in the park, it opened as a non-operating exhibit to the public in 1984. David Goodlett was born on April 3, 1840, in Tippah County, Mississippi. After the death of his mother in 1844, Goodlett moved with his family to Camden (Ouachita County). In 1859, he moved …

Governor’s Mansion Historic District

The Governor’s Mansion Historic District is the area surrounding the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 13, 1978, the district has been expanded three times. The first two expansions of the district came in 1988 and 2002. Including properties constructed between 1880 and 1965, the boundaries of the district as of 2020 are roughly Wright Avenue, South State Street, West 22nd Street, South Chester Street, and West Roosevelt Road. A total of 626 contributing structures were included in the district with the third boundary expansion in 2018. This expansion came from a comprehensive survey completed in 2016 by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The district includes the namesake Governor’s …

Grand Army of the Republic Monument (Judsonia)

The Grand Army of the Republic Monument located in the north-central section of Evergreen Cemetery in Judsonia (White County) was erected in 1894 by the W. T. Sherman Post No. 84 of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). It is one of three such monuments known to have been erected in Arkansas, the others being in Siloam Springs (Benton County) and Gentry (Benton County). The Grand Army of the Republic was a national organization of Union Civil War veterans initially formed to help the widows and orphans of fallen Union servicemen and to support the Republican Party; it later focused upon promoting patriotic activities and decorating the graves of the war dead. The first GAR camp was established in …

Grand Army of the Republic Monument (Siloam Springs)

The Grand Army of the Republic Monument located in Twin Springs Park in Siloam Springs (Benton County) was erected in 1928 by the S. R. Curtis Post No. 9 of the Grand Army of the Republic’s Arkansas Department. It is one of three such monuments known to have been erected in Arkansas, the others being in Gentry (Benton County) and Judsonia (White County). The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a national organization of Union Civil War veterans initially formed to help the widows and orphans of fallen Union servicemen and to support the Republican Party; it later focused on promoting patriotic activities and decorating the graves of the war dead. The first GAR camp was established in Decatur, …

Grant County Museum

The Grant County Museum in Sheridan (Grant County) aims to preserve the heritage of the county and to provide individual attention to both students and adults seeking information pertaining to local history. In 2002, the museum was awarded the Museum of the Year award by the Arkansas Museums Association. The Grant County Museum was established in 1963 by Prattsville High School history teacher Elwin Goolsby as a local history teaching project for his students. From 1963 until late 1970, the museum’s collections were housed in various classrooms provided by Prattsville (Grant County) and Sheridan schools. In 1970, the Sheridan Chamber of Commerce began looking for a permanent home for Goolsby’s rapidly expanding collections. This desire was sparked by the interest …

Gravette Historical Museum

aka: Kindley House
The Gravette Historical Museum is housed in the historic two-story Kindley House located at 503 Charlotte Street in Gravette (Benton County). Founded in 1995, the museum houses a collection of artifacts documenting the history of the area, as well as detailing the life of one-time town resident and World War I air ace Field Kindley. The Kindley House—L-shaped and of Italianate design—was constructed sometime in the 1870s of brick manufactured on site. After having several occupants, it was purchased by Amos Eraster Kindley, who moved to the town in 1898 and assisted in establishing the Bank of Gravette. In about 1908, he and his wife, Mary, obtained custody of their nephew Field Eugene Kindley, whose mother had recently died. The …

Great Southern Hotel

The Great Southern Hotel, also known as the Rusher Hotel or Hotel Rusher, is a historic hotel building at 127 West Cedar Street near the town square in Brinkley (Monroe County), about seventy miles west of Memphis, Tennessee. Brinkley was an important railroad town in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The three-story brick building was constructed in 1915 to serve as Brinkley’s Union Station. Its main entrance originally faced the railway tracks but was reoriented to a street façade after the decline of the railroad. The Great Southern Hotel building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 18, 1986. The building is part of Brinkley’s Lick Skillet Railroad Work Station Historic District, which itself …

Greek Amphitheatre (Magnolia)

The Greek Amphitheatre, located at the junction of East Lane Drive, East University Street, and Crescent Drive at Southern Arkansas University (SAU) in Magnolia (Columbia County), was constructed between 1936 and 1938 with assistance from the National Youth Administration (NYA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 1, 2005. In 1936, the graduating class at the then two-year Magnolia A&M voted to help build an amphitheater on the campus as their memorial to the school. They acquired support from the NYA, with the federal agency providing labor and the college and the class of 1936 supplying an additional $200 and materials. The stage had progressed sufficiently to host a May …

Green Forest Water Tower

The Green Forest Water Tower is located on Springfield Street in Green Forest (Carroll County). The metal water tower was built by the Chicago Bridge and Iron Works for the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1937. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 22, 2007. The first settlers of European descent to move into what later became Green Forest arrived around 1836, and scattered development continued up to the advent of the Civil War. All of the buildings in the area were destroyed during the war, but by 1870 it was a bustling community featuring six stores, and by 1889 it had eleven stores and a combination flour/saw mill and cotton gin, and a Masonic …

Greene County Courthouse (1888)

The 1888 Greene County Courthouse, located at 306 W. Court Street in Paragould (Greene County), is a three-story rectangular structure. The building exhibits the Italianate style in the low-pitched, hipped roofline; the square cupola supporting a clock tower; widely overhanging eaves with decorative brackets; and tall, narrow windows. The exterior also features Georgian Revival accents shown in the pediments on each side. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 11, 1976. The restored building is no longer used as a courthouse, but it houses the Paragould Regional Chamber of Commerce and is open to visitors. Greene County has changed county seats three times. The first county seat was located at a town called Paris …

Greene County Museum

The Greene County Museum in Paragould (Greene County) opened in 2008. The museum consists of fourteen themed rooms that are filled with artifacts from the county’s past, including items relating to school history, military, sports, Native Americans, and railroads. One of the rooms is dedicated to Governor Junius Marion Futrell, in whose former home the museum is based. Establishing a museum to house Greene County’s historical artifacts was a longtime goal of the Greene County Historical and Genealogical Society. In 2004, the group decided to hold a public meeting to discuss the possibility of opening a museum. To raise awareness of the need for a county museum, society members made presentations to local clubs and organizations. Other methods used to …

Greens at North Hills

aka: Sylvan Hills Country Club Golf Course
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, the Greens at North Hills in Sherwood (Pulaski County) was originally named Sylvan Hills Country Club and was built in the Sylvan Hills community along the North Heights Highway (also known at times as the Ark-Mo Highway, AR Highway 5, and AR Highway 107) in 1926. The country club was envisioned and built by real estate developer Justin Matthews Sr. to provide recreational opportunities for residents living in his new Park Hill subdivision in North Little Rock (Pulaski County), as well as residents of his planned community of Sylvan Hills, located at present-day Loop, Kellogg, Johnson, and Miller roads. In 1927, Justin Matthews Sr. and his wife, Agnes, transferred their …

Greenwood Gymnasium

aka: Old Rock Gym
The Greenwood Gymnasium, at 300 East Gary Street in Greenwood (Sebastian County), is a sturdy stone structure built between 1937 and 1939 with assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief agency. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 2011. The first school classes taught in the southern Sebastian County area where the town of Greenwood would be established began in 1870 in a one-room log building. Some classes were available by subscription at the Buckner College near Greenwood in the late 1870s and early 1880s, but students receiving a public education were assigned to Pleasant Ridge School District No. 12, which was based in Palestine. Greenwood’s population swelled with the …

Griffin Auto Company Building

The Griffin Auto Company building was considered the finest car dealership building in the city of El Dorado (Union County) when it opened in 1928. The building exemplifies the architectural transition from the traditional storefront showrooms to super service stations. The Murphy Arts District (MAD) purchased the Griffin building in 2012, restoring and converting it into a farm-to-table restaurant and music venue. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 25, 2001, and included in the El Dorado Commercial Historic District on August 21, 2003, the Griffin Auto Company Building is located at 117 E. Locust, two blocks from El Dorado’s courthouse square. Its boxy, symmetrical massing was originally divided into three sections: a filling station, a showroom, …