A cemetery in Eureka Springs, an airport building in El Dorado and the Mosaic Templars State Temple Building in Little Rock are among 18 properties that will be considered for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places when the state review board meets April 4 in Little Rock.
The board, part of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, meets three times a year and usually nominates eight to 15 properties for the National Register, which is the official list of the nation's historic places worthy of preservation.
"This strong agenda again emphasizes the rich diversity of historic resources in Arkansas," said Mark Christ, a spokesman for the program. "The board will consider buildings from a south Arkansas munitions plant, a humble church and school, two turn-of-the-century commercial districts and the childhood home of one of America's greatest singing stars, which is a pretty broad range of properties."
[360-DEGREE PHOTO: See inside Johnny Cash's boyhood home]
Christ was referring to the boyhood home of Johnny Cash, which was rejected by the National Register last month. The board was urged to resubmit the nomination to focus on the influence Cash's early years in Arkansas had on his musical career.
"Currently, there are no properties associated with Cash himself listed in the National Register, although Sun Recording Studio in Memphis is listed (Cash recorded there in his early days)," Jim Gabbert, a historian who reviewed the nomination for the National Register, wrote in his comments to the board.
If the board can demonstrate that the New Deal-era, five-room farmhouse at Dyess in Mississippi County had a "profound impact" on Cash's formative years, then it can be listed on the National Register, Gabbert wrote.
The new nomination form addresses the "profound impact" of the property and surrounding landscape on Cash's career in music.
Cash's song "Five Feet High and Rising" is about the 1937 flood, which occurred when he was a boy in Dyess. In the song, Cash saw a silver lining in the floodwaters of the Tyronza River. They "washed a load of rich black bottom dirt across our land. The following year we had the best cotton crop we'd ever had."
Cash lived in the house at Dyess from the age of 3 through high school.
Cash's boyhood home is also being considered for its architectural significance.
The Eureka Springs Cemetery was founded by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge No. 83 in 1889, although early accounts indicate the land may have been used as a burial ground as early as 1880, according to the nomination form. The land was transferred to the city in 1965.
"A vast collection of monuments, vaults, and stone markers are set against a forest of pine and oak trees and the rolling landscape of the cemetery," according to the proposed nomination.
The cemetery is the final resting place of several noted Eurekans, including U.S. Rep. Claude Albert Fuller, muralist H. Louis Freund and Festus Orestes Butt, a lawyer who lived to the age of 99.
Completed in 1950, the Goodwin Field Administration Building is at South Arkansas Regional Airport near El Dorado.
"The cast concrete, two-story building with a control tower functions as the administration and terminal building for the airport," according to the nomination form. "The building exhibits late Art Moderne architectural elements transitioning to the International Style."
Nautical elements in the building include round windows, porthole doors and exterior metal railings, according to the nomination form.
It was designed by John B. Abbott, an architect from El Dorado who designed four cast-concrete buildings in the city: Memorial Stadium (1946); Goodwin Field Administration Building (circa 1947); American Legion Building (later known as the TAC [Teen Age Club] House) (circa 1949); and the Royal Crown Bottling Company building (1950). All four still exist.
The Mosaic Templars State Temple Building is a two-story brick and terra cotta building at 906 S. Broadway in downtown Little Rock. It is the last remaining historic building associated with the Mosaic Templars organization in Little Rock, according to the nomination form.
The building is significant because of its associations with "the development of African-American businesses and fraternal organizations in the late 19th century in Arkansas," according to the nomination form.
"The Mosaic Templars of America was founded in 1882 and incorporated in 1883 by former slaves John Edward Bush and Chester W. Keatts as an African-American fraternal organization that offered mutual aid to the black community," according to the form. "At its peak, the Mosaic Templars had over 100,000 members in chapters in 26 states, the Caribbean, and South and Central America."
The building is at Ninth and Broadway, which was the heart of Little Rock's "African-American business district," according to the nomination.
Other Arkansas properties that will be considered for nomination April 4 include:
• Fulk-Arkansas Democrat Building in Little Rock.
• Carmichael House in the Landmark community in Pulaski County.
• Cleveland Arms at Hot Springs in Garland County.
• Washington Street Historic District Boundary Increase at Camden in Ouachita County.
• Schumaker Naval Ammunition Depot Barracks Buildings and Schumaker Naval Ammunition Depot Administration Building at East Camden in Calhoun County.
• Mount Salem Church and School near Paris in Logan County.
• C.A. Stuck and Sons Lumber Office Building at Jonesboro in Craighead County.
• Lockesburg Gymnasium at Lockesburg in Sevier County.
• Nevada County Courthouse at Prescott.
• Deepwood House at Fayetteville in Washington County.
• Prairie Grove Commercial Historic District and North Mock Street Commercial Historic District at Prairie Grove in Washington County.
• Carpenter Building at Gentry in Benton County.
Metro on 03/22/2018