July 16, 1963

The Belle Grove Historic District in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with the Vaughn-Schaap House as its first restored structure. The house, built circa 1855–1857 in the Victorian Second Empire style by Ethelbert B. Bright, an Osage agent and businessman, became the permanent home of the Associated Artists of Fort Smith (AAFS) in 1960. In 1964, motivated by a $3,000 donation from the Junior League of Fort Smith, the Affiliation of Fine Arts (AFA), as the AAFS had become known, mortgaged the Vaughn-Schaap House for $13,000 to build additional exhibit space and purchase adjacent property. In 1968, the AFA incorporated as the Fort Smith Art Center; it was renamed the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum in 2010.