Time Period: Early Twentieth Century (1901 - 1940) - Starting with H

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 …

Housley v. State

On November 13, 1919, Virgil Housely was convicted of arson and sentenced to two years in an Arkansas prison for his alleged role in the March 29, 1919, attack on the African American settlement of Little Georgia (Garland County). Housley’s conviction was later overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court. On the evening of March 29, 1919, six or seven men gathered to attack the African American residents of Little Georgia, possibly in hopes of seizing valuable farmland. They swept through the town, firing guns, setting fire to homes with torches, and throwing dynamite. After the incident, most Black families fled Little Georgia, and it was not until the end of May that authorities were able to identify and arrest six …

Howard County Courthouse

The Howard County Courthouse is located on 421 North Main Street. It stands at the gateway of downtown Nashville (Howard County), which encompasses the city’s commercial and government districts. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the two-story building as architecturally and historically significant, as it stands as a visible result of the New Deal policies of the 1930s. The National Park Service added it to the National Register of Historic Places on June 14, 1990. At the county’s creation in 1873, the Nineteenth Arkansas General Assembly made Center Point (Howard County) the county seat due to its convenient geographical location. Meanwhile, the economic hub centered on Nashville, with cotton, wool, and peaches driving economic output. After the Arkansas and Louisiana …

Hubert and Ionia Furr House

The Hubert and Ionia Furr House is located at 702 Desoto Avenue in Arkansas City (Desha County). Built in 1910 by local timber man Hubert Furr and wife, Ionia, the house was constructed in the Dutch Colonial Revival style. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, the home is also the only residence in Arkansas City that has face ornamental concrete block. Hubert Furr was born in Tennessee in 1875 and moved to Arkansas City in 1892. Furr was known as “the Hustling Real Estate and Timber Man of Desha County”; he seemed to be better versed in timber values than any other person in the county. Furr had become one of the most influential residents of Desha …

Huddleston, John Wesley

John Wesley Huddleston is best known as a struggling farmer who found two diamonds on the surface of his field near Murfreesboro (Pike County) in August 1906 and made himself and his state famous. Soon after the discovery, he was recognized as the first person outside South Africa to find diamonds at an original volcanic source. In the process, he also became the controversial subject of numerous folk tales. A native of Pike County, John Huddleston was born in 1862 to David Fielding Huddleston and America White Huddleston. He had seven siblings before his mother’s death in the early 1870s and gained three step-sisters after his father’s remarriage to Francis Carey. In 1886, Huddleston wed Sarah A. Keys, the mother …