Faubus' residence, 9 sites in state added to National Register

The Magnolia Service Station on West Seventh Street in Little Rock is among the new listings on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Magnolia Service Station on West Seventh Street in Little Rock is among the new listings on the National Register of Historic Places.

Orval Faubus' house in Huntsville, a gas station in Little Rock and a bridge near Morrilton are among 10 Arkansas properties that have been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The new listings were announced Monday by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

"I encourage everyone to take a road trip and explore our amazing state," said Stacy Hurst, Arkansas' historic preservation officer and cabinet secretary for the state's Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism. "A great place to start is by searching the National Register listings on our website [arkansaspreservation.com] for locations near you."

The home of former Gov. Orval Faubus was designed by Fayetteville architect E. Fay Jones. Built on what is called Governor's Hill, overlooking Huntsville, the house was completed in 1967.

Faubus served as governor from 1955 to 1967, holding the office longer than any other person, according to the Central Arkansas Library System Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

"His record was in many ways progressive, but he is most widely remembered for his attempt to block the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957," according to the encyclopedia entry written by Roy Reed. "His stand against what he called 'forced integration' resulted in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's sending federal troops to Little Rock to enforce the 1954 desegregation ruling of the Supreme Court."

Faubus died in 1994.

The Magnolia Service Station at 3023 W. Seventh St. in Little Rock was built around 1937. It's a one-story, brick, Spanish-eclectic-style building with prominent arched openings and a parapet roof, according to the National Register nomination form.

"The original front double windows and transoms are still intact," according to the nomination. "The original terracotta tile shingles still overhang the east and west sides of the building and line the short parapet over the front bays."

There's evidence an awning with exposed wood rafters once hung over the main entrance, according to the nomination.

The bridge over Point Remove Creek near Morrilton "remains virtually unaltered" from the time of its construction in 1926, according to the nomination form. The bridge has a single Pratt through-truss span that is 120 feet long and two concrete-beam approach spans that are each 75 feet long. It was built by the Virginia Bridge and Iron Co.

Other Arkansas properties added to the National Register were:

• Elmwood Cemetery Historic Section in Morrilton. Elmwood is Conway County's largest cemetery. Its historic section consists of about 22 acres in the northwest corner with 976 graves dating from 1861.

• Community Mausoleum, Elmwood Cemetery, Morrilton. Built in 1920-21, the community mausoleum is a single-story, stone structure that holds 93 crypts.

• Army and Navy Memorial Lodge at Royal in Garland County. Completed in 1950, this building is an excellent example of a U.S. Army-Navy hospital recreational lodge of the era, according to the nomination. The lodges served as places of healing for the injured, and rest and relaxation for other members of the military, according to the nomination.

• J.M. Bransford House in Lonoke. Built in 1925, this one-story, brick house was designed in the Tudor Revival style by the Arkansas architect John Parks Almand.

• William H. Grey grave site in Helena-West Helena. Located in Magnolia Cemetery, a seven-tiered sandstone obelisk marks the grave of this prominent black citizen who was born in Washington, D.C., in 1829 and died in Helena in 1888.

• Waldron School Historic District in Waldron. This property consists of two buildings: the C.E. Forrester Building (home economics) and the Vocational Agriculture Building. Both were constructed in the late 1930s by the Works Progress Administration, which was renamed the Works Projects Administration in 1939.

• Tweedy-Puntch House in Springdale. Built between 1947 and 1951, this house was designed in the Usonian Style by James William Oglesby III, a Springdale native. It is built of red brick and California redwood and has been home to only two families since its construction, according to the nomination.

Metro on 10/08/2019

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