Time Period: Early Twentieth Century (1901 - 1940)

Hot Springs Fire of 1905

The Hot Springs Fire of 1905 was one of the most destructive in Arkansas history. It destroyed nearly 400 buildings and caused $2 million in damage. The horrific blaze forever changed the unique architecture of Hot Springs (Garland County). Hot Springs quickly rebuilt after the Civil War years of 1861–1865. The pre-war population of 201 had exploded to 9,973 residents by 1900. By 1904, it was the region’s most important tourist destination. Of the 120,000 people who visited at least one of America’s national parks in 1904, roughly eighty-four percent visited Hot Springs National Park. Unknown numbers of additional travelers visited the town but not the park. Most of the visitors came to bathe in the waters (thought to have …

Hot Springs Fire of 1913

The Hot Springs Fire of 1913 was one of the most destructive in Arkansas history. It caused $10 million in damage, destroyed twenty acres of Hot Springs (Garland County), and left more than 2,500 people homeless. By 1910, Hot Springs was one of the most important cities in the region and the pre–Civil War population of 201 had exploded to 14,434. Many travelers also visited the town and the National Park. People from all over the world came to bathe in the city’s hot spring water, thought to have healing properties, but many also partook of the town’s illegal gambling and prostitution. In a state best known for rural poverty, Hot Springs was a rare island of wealth and modernity. …

Hot Springs National Guard Armory

The Hot Springs National Guard Armory at 210 Woodbine Street in Hot Springs (Garland County) is a single-story, Art Deco–style structure built in 1937–1938 with assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 2017. Citizen-soldier militias have had a constant presence in the United States since the colonial era, but it was not until Congress passed the Militia Act of 1903—also known as the Dick Act for sponsor Senator Charles W. F. Dick, chairman of the Committee on the Militia—that the National Guard became an official partner in the nation’s armed services, receiving federal support for training, equipment, and wages. Arkansas’s state militia …

Hot Springs Normal and Industrial Institute

aka: Mebane Academy
The Board of Missions for Freedmen of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA), or the “Northern” Presbyterian Church, began opening schools for freed slaves in the South as early as the 1860s. However, no schools were started in Arkansas until 1889, when a new presbytery was established and significant numbers of African Americans from the eastern states were resettling in the state. During the early 1890s, the Reverend A. E. Torrence, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, opened a parochial school for black students in Hot Springs (Garland County). He conducted it independently but did receive some aid from the Board of Missions. By 1895, there were 100 students in attendance. According to Inez Parker, while the school was …

Hotel Frederica

aka: Hotel Freiderica
aka: Hotel Sam Peck
aka: Legacy Hotel
What was originally called the Hotel Freiderica and known for many years as the Hotel Sam Peck in Little Rock (Pulaski County) at 625 W. Capitol Ave. was developed by Fred W. Allsopp, a prominent businessman who at the time was business manager and part owner the Arkansas Gazette. The hotel, which opened in 1914, was named for his wife, Mary Freiderica Chapple. Since its opening, the hotel has been operated under several names (most recently Hotel Frederica) and has had several different owners. It has enjoyed successes including national fame but has also endured failures and foreclosure. Both the exterior and interior have been remodeled several times. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September …

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 …

Houser, Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte Houser was a prominent African American physician, owner of the Black Diamond Drug Store, and investor in Helena (Phillips County) from 1901 to 1920. He came to Helena from Charlotte, North Carolina, as the Arkansas Delta’s population and opportunities grew, but returned to the place of his birth following the Elaine Massacre. N. B. Houser was born near Gastonia, in Gaston County, North Carolina, on February 14, 1869. He was the son of William H. Houser, a well-to-do brick mason and contractor, and Fannie Houser, a housekeeper and mother. The youngest of six siblings, Houser attended public schools in Charlotte and worked as a farm hand on his father’s farm until the age of fourteen, when he began …