Five sites -- Little Rock's Central High School neighborhood, Arkansas Mound sites statewide and multiple downtown Hot Springs buildings -- have been added to the state's list of historic and endangered places, officials announced Thursday.
The Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and rehabilitating historic places, produces an updated list of endangered areas or facilities each year. Organizers said the goal is to raise awareness about the importance of Arkansas's historic properties and the dangers they face.
The five added to the list are:
• Arkansas Mound sites, 1500 B.C.-A.D. 1700, statewide. Historic preservationists said they serve as an important representation of the native people of Arkansas through many cultures and time periods.
• Central High School Neighborhood Historic District, 1870-1961, Little Rock. The preservationists said that although private investment has helped the neighborhood where school desegregation took place, there are a number of vacant, neglected buildings. Alterations and demolitions jeopardize the district's designation and property owners' access to state and federal historic tax credits, the preservationists said.
• Downtown Hot Springs, 1886-1930. Historic preservationists said that the fire that destroyed the oldest section of the Majestic Hotel in February "dramatized the issues facing legacy structures that define one of the most recognizable commercial districts in the state."
• John Lee Webb House, 1900, Hot Springs. The house at 403 Pleasant St., home for three decades to one of the most influential leaders of the black community in Hot Springs, is vacant and falling apart. Webb was supreme custodian of the fraternal organization Woodmen of the Union and president of the National Baptist Laymen's Convention.
• Thompson Building, 1913, Hot Springs. The building, with its ornate glazed terra cotta façade, was designed in the neoclassical style by architect George R. Mann, the principal architect of the Arkansas Capitol. It is particularly vulnerable to fire due to a vertical shaft that runs through the top four floors, preservationists said.
Metro on 05/25/2014