FORT SMITH — Fort Smith’s Belle Grove Historic District is growing.
Not in its boundaries but in the size of its recorded history.
The expansion, which includes cataloging 140 of its 174 structures, is one of nine nominations to the National Register of Historic Places scheduled to be considered by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
The preservation program’s state review board, which is responsible for approving all national register nominations in Arkansas, meets Aug. 1 in Little Rock.
The National Park Service makes the final determination on register nominations, said Ralph Wilcox, national register and survey coordinator with the state preservation program.
Belle Grove, just north of downtown, is the city’s oldest neighborhood and the second oldest in the state, according to the nomination description.
The district was added to the national register in 1973, Wilcox said.
The initial description of the district wasn’t very detailed when first added to the list almost 40 years ago, Wilcox said.
The current nomination provides more description of what structures are in the district.
“It will give people in Fort Smith greater knowledge of the neighborhood and the people who lived there,” he said.
The initial description was about 10 pages.
The expansion of the Belle Grove Historic District’s description to 30 pages was completed earlier this year by consultants Thomason and Associates of Nashville, Tenn., Wilcox said.
The bulk of the document is a description of 140 homes and other buildings along with a history of the neighborhood and the various architectural styles.
The district boundaries are North Fifth to North Eighth streets and North C to North G streets.
Fort Smith Senior Planner Maggie Rice said the updated nomination before the preservation program will provide more comprehensive information on the history of the homes within the district.
“The original nomination focused on the Victorian style homes,” Rice said.
“The new nomination includes the diversity of architectural styles within the district.”
The description catalogs the progression of home building styles in the district from Italianate and Second Empire in the mid-19th century to the Queen Anne, Victorian and Romanesque Revivalin the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It also includes the emergence of the Prairie, Colonial Revival and Craftsman/Bungalow styles in the 20th century.
According to the description, the majority of the homes in the district were built between 1870 and 1930.
In the city’s early days of the mid-19th century, Belle Grove became the city’s most affluent residential neighborhood.
The oldest dwelling in the district, according to the description, is that of Fort Smith founder John Rogers at 400 N. Eighth St., a 1 1/2-story Greek Revival brick home built around 1840.
Rogers lived there for several years, after which it became the home of the Tilles family.
It was renovated in the 1970s.
The description also noted another early home, the Casper Reutzel House at 423 N. D St. Reutzel was a native of Dormstadt, Germany, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1848.
Reutzel owned the largest cotton distribution operation on the Arkansas River, the description stated, was a city councilman and helped found First Lutheran Church in Fort Smith.
Also in the district are several lavish homes that were renovated and furnished in their original style.
Among them are:
The McKibben-Bonneville House at 318 N. Seventh St., built in 1868 for David McKibben and was the home of Civil War Gen. Benjamin Bonneville’s widow, Sue, from 1878 to 1898.
The William Henry Harrison Clayton House at 514 N. Sixth St., built about 1882 as the home of the federal prosecutor during U.S. District Judge Isaac C. Parker’s tenure.
The Vaughn-Schaap House at 423 N. Sixth St., built in 1871 and served as the Fort Smith Art Center from 1960 until the early 2000s and now is the Fort Smith headquarters of 3rd District U.S. Rep. Steve Womack.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/23/2012