We roll into Norman on a Saturday afternoon as part of our desultory drive through the Ouachita Mountains. I've always liked Montgomery County--the scenery, the spring-fed streams, the sparsely settled stretches of countryside and the mountain culture.
We're attracted on this day to the tiny building that proclaims itself as the Norman Library. The structure once was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the smallest freestanding public library in the country. The library was the work of a group of Norman women who founded a garden club here in 1936.
"One of the first projects of the club was to replace the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the local park and town square with a native stone wall," writes David Sesser of Henderson State University at Arkadelphia. "By 1939, with the help of the Works Progress Administration, the wall was constructed. The club's crowning achievement came to fruition in 1940 with the establishment of the library in the center of the park. The building was originally constructed to serve as the town's pumping station, moving water from the Caddo River to the water tower on the other side of town. Measuring 170 square feet, the building was rarely used. Even city workers infrequently entered the structure.
"Marie Pinkerton, the president and founder of the club, approached the city council to inquire about acquiring the use of the building for the establishment of a town library. The council agreed, and the club raised funds to furnish the building. Mission oak shelving was used to house the more than 500 books the group gathered. Two librarians were hired, and the library opened to the public. It remained open intermittently during the next half-century. During this time, it also served as a temporary office and jail."
The rectangular building features a Craftsman-style front porch over the north entrance. There are nine-paned windows in the eastern and western walls. A group was organized to restore the structure in the 1990s. The park and library were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
"Throughout the 1990s, the library was open five days a week and served the community as the only point of Internet access in the surrounding area," Sesser writes. "Grant money was received to repair the stone wall around the park and to replace the roof of the library building. In 2006, the roof was replaced, but it began leaking almost immediately. The library was closed."
The next stop on our Norman invasion is what's known as the Caddo Indian Memorial along the banks of the Caddo River. A quarter-mile path allows hikers to read signs explaining the Caddo culture. Unfortunately, several of the signs have been stolen and others are hard to read as maintenance at the memorial has been minimal through the years. The site was a Caddo burial ground.
"In October 1988, the city of Norman had begun excavation at this site for construction of a sewage treatment plant," Mary Lysobey writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "Digging was stopped when bones and artifacts were discovered. Subsequent archaeological excavations by Dr. Ann Early of the Arkansas Archeological Survey found evidence of significant Caddo Indian occupation from 1250-1500. Two burials and a small cluster of residential features and artifacts were uncovered, indicating that Caddo Indians lived on this plot of ground. Earlier residential use of the site left the remains of a large circular house with a hearth and burned floor."
Leaders of the Caddo Indian Nation in Oklahoma asked Norman officials to relocate the plant, and those wishes were followed. The remains and artifacts were reburied. Caddo Chairman Elmo Clark led a religious ceremony on the grounds in April 1989.
"The burial ground was then covered with a hard-to-dig material to thwart future pilfering and pot hunting," Lysobey writes. "Grass was planted, and a wooden fence was added to keep vehicles off the premises. The city maintained the area, but nothing indicated that the fence encompassed a sacred place. In 2000, the Southern Montgomery County Development Council received a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council to create and display interpretive historical signage at the Caddo burial ground. ... SMCDC funded and provided the labor to construct a pathway, which was made of natural materials as requested by the Caddo Nation. The path and signs were in place by the summer of 2002."
What's now Norman was known as Womble until 1925. It had just 378 residents in the 2010 census, down from a high of 552 people a century earlier. Womble was established to serve the lumber mills that were along the Gurdon & Fort Smith Railroad.
Arkansas historian Russell Baker notes that plans were announced in 1905 "to extend the railroad line from Glenwood, then its terminus, to Black Springs in Montgomery County. This announcement brought a number of land speculators, including Walter E. Womble Sr., into the area. In 1907, a dispute over rights of way halted the project near the Caddo River, several miles short of its goal. The Black Springs Lumber Co. abandoned its plans to build a large lumber mill at Black Springs and chose a site at the railhead instead."
Womble bought land and platted a town in a field north of the railhead. A post office opened there in July 1907 with Womble as postmaster. Womble was replaced as postmaster in 1922. Residents voted in 1925 to change the name of the town to Norman, and Womble moved his family to Fort Smith.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 04/20/2019