ROGERS — An architectural historian with the Army Corps of Engineers described the ruins of Monte Ne as “a fascinating building” and “more than I expected” after spending four days examining it.
Also, she said, it’s in no danger of collapsing anytime soon.
Mary McCormick was talking Friday about a graffiti-covered three-story cement “tower” that was part of a 1910 hotel called Oklahoma Row. It’s the largest remnant of the ghost resort on the shore of Beaver Lake.
The resort town of Monte Ne was flooded in the mid-1960s when the Army Corps dammed the White River to make the lake. But Oklahoma Row was built on a hill, so the tower has remained above the water level for the most part. The tower is about 3 miles east of Rogers, near the spot where Arkansas 94 Spur dead-ends into the water.
The logs that made up most of the 13,950-square-foot hotel were removed from the site before the area was inundated. The remaining tower contained three primary rooms on each floor, and each room had a fireplace, McCormick said. The tower’s footprint is 32 by 32 feet, and it’s about 35 feet tall, she said. The walls are 8 to 10 inches thick.
A century ago, Monte Ne was Arkansas’ third most popular resort town, behind Hot Springs and Eureka Springs.
McCormick works for the Corps of Engineers’ Center of Expertise for the Preservation of Historic Buildings and Structures in Seattle. She’s preparing a report on the structural integrity of the Oklahoma Row tower. That report will be complete in about three months, she said. The Corps plans to spend about $86,130 to study the site to determine whether to pursue restoration, and McCormick said her job was to do a “preliminary investigation.”
The Corps of Engineers is looking for partners willing to spend about $122,000 to restore the Oklahoma Row tower. If no partners are found within the next couple of months, the Corps will consider tearing down the tower, but Chris Page, an archaeologist with the Corps’ Little Rock district, said that will be a last resort. Demolishing the tower would cost about $55,000, according to an initial preservation plan.
Monte Ne and Oklahoma Row are already on the National Register of Historic Places.
The history of Monte Ne centers on William Hope “Coin” Harvey, who was one of the best-known and most influential people in the United States in the 1890s. Harvey was a lawyer and promoter from West Virginia who gained nationwide fame in 1894 when he wrote an economics book titled Coin’s Financial School, which was one of the five best-selling books of the 19th century.
Beaver Lake has lapped at the tower, eroding its foundation and creating the possibility of a collapse, according to the initial preservation plan.
But McCormick doesn’t think that would happen soon.
“Unless there’s a major wave action and flooding, it would be pretty stable for the next few years at least, so it’s not in any immediate danger of collapsing,” said Page, who had conferred with McCormick on the structural integrity of the tower. “I didn’t notice any major structural issues. On the outside, the mortar layer has eroded from wave action, but that’s not a major structural issue.”
Page said the tower is an early example of the use of Portland cement for construction in Arkansas. Oklahoma Row was designed by A.O.Clarke, an architect from St. Louis who designed several buildings in Rogers, including Rogers High School and Victory Theater.
McCormick said the building is made of poured cement that contains no reinforced bar, which is often used today. That may be a reason why it has stood so long, she said. Moisture can collect around reinforced bar, causing the cement around the metal to give way.
“What’s really fascinating is it’s all cement,” McCormick said. “The floors and the ceiling are cement as well.”
McCormick said the technology used to build Oklahoma Row was “distinctive.”
“It’s not the work of a master,” she said. “It seems the architect put it together using his limited knowledge, but he built a very durable cement building.”
McCormick said the building has several decorative details, including “simulated rubble stone masonry” on the exterior, where rock is embedded in the plaster. McCormick said the cement walls were formed to look like stone blocks. She said cobblestone masonry was used above one of the fireplaces in the tower.
“I really had no idea what was inside the building,” she said. “I had seen exterior pictures. I didn’t know the room configuration. They called it a tower, but I didn’t know what that tower was used for. ... I didn’t have something exactly in mind, but it was more than I expected.”
The chimney of Missouri Row, a 14,030-square-foot hotel that once existed at Monte Ne, is also above the water level, but that wasn’t part of McCormick’s study, she said. The two Monte Ne hotels were among the largest log structures in the world, said Allyn Lord, director of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, who compiled a book of photographs called Historic Monte Ne as part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series.
Lord said local historians are trying to raise $10,000 for a feasibility study on the future of the Oklahoma Row site. She’s concerned about the long term preservation. If $122,000 is raised to remove graffiti and restore the building, it will still cost about $7,000 per year for upkeep of the property, she said.
For decades, the Oklahoma Row tower has served as a place for illicit activities, according to the initial preservation plan. Monte Ne isn’t an incorporated city, so there are no local police to monitor activities at the ruins.
In October, the Corps put an 8-foot-tall chain-link fence around the tower with barbed wire along the top to discourage climbers. The Engineers also put a buoy line in the water to keep boats at least 50 feet from the site.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/13/2012