Are We There Yet?

Clover Bend site a tribute to New Deal project

Gymnasium at the former Clover Bend High School
Gymnasium at the former Clover Bend High School

CLOVER BEND -- The Great Depression brought misery to so many Arkansans and other Americans. But hope did gradually revive, sparked in large part by Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs.

Thanks to the legendary fame of Johnny Cash, the community of Dyess has been in the spotlight in recent years with restoration of his family's modest home in the community created for landless farmers. Among the nation's 100 or so similar federal projects, then called "resettlement colonies," another half-dozen including Clover Bend were set up in Arkansas.

Volunteers since the 1980s have created Clover Bend Historic District, which preserves buildings from the 1930s project that were supervised by the Resettlement Administration and then the Farm Security Administration. Located 120 miles northeast of Little Rock, the National Register of Historic Places site can be visited to view the buildings, a couple of which are sometimes open. Guided tours are available by appointment.

Unlike Dyess, which was built from scratch in the swampy terrain of Mississippi County, Clover Bend had a century-long history that included brief service as the Lawrence County seat in the 1870s. It was also the winter home from 1883-1909 of Alice French, a popular writer of fiction and essays under the pen name Octave Thanet.

For today's readers, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, "her work is redeemed by her narrative skill and a wry sense of humor. In her Arkansas stories, the narrator is the superior outsider, reporting the shocking, amusing, or irritating ways of people who are clearly her -- and her readers' -- inferiors." She "says that life in Arkansas is 'more attractive than anyone who does not live in the state will believe.'"

The author's memory is honored in front of the Clover Bend Community Center by the Alice French Bell Pavilion. The bell, cast in 1885 and shipped here by riverboat, was hung in the pavilion in 1992 by the Clover Bend Historical Preservation Association. It is rung at yearly reunions by attendees 75 years and older. The 2017 reunion is scheduled for this weekend.

The community center, which served as the local high school from 1939 to 1983, is one of 10 structures at Clover Bend. Those original to the property also include the school's gymnasium, a cafeteria, a cottage used for vocational home economics and a vocational agriculture building. Moved here from elsewhere in Lawrence County were a farmhouse, a barn, a chicken coop, a smokehouse and a privy.

Volunteers are working to complete a museum in the community center, which evokes a sense of life in Clover Bend during the high school's 44 years of operation. One photograph shows the school's three initial graduates in 1940: Marjorie Hallmark, R.J. Nova Terry and Marjorie Smith. In the former assembly hall, an organ still stands near the stage.

As the preservation association's website recounts, the high school was consolidated with Hoxie's in 1983. The local school district sought bids to demolish the buildings, which "sparked the ire of Clover Bend residents. ... Many alumni and friends expressed interest in the center being kept available for community use, in keeping with its original purpose."

Their successful efforts saved a slice of Arkansas history well worth preserving.

The grounds of Clover Bend National Historic District can be visited daily. There's no visitor center or admission charge. The site is on Arkansas 228 about 4 miles west of U.S. 67. For more information, visit cloverbend.com.

Weekend on 05/25/2017

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