STUTTGART -- A fire early Tuesday morning destroyed an Arkansas County courthouse annex building that housed the offices of sheriff, assessor, emergency management, collector, county judge, sanitation, 911 and Arkansas State Police.
No injuries were reported.
The fire's cause had not been determined late Tuesday, but the state fire marshal was at the scene investigating, said Sonny Cox, county judge for Arkansas County. Early reports suggested that the fire may have been electrical and related to the heating and air-conditioning units at the back of the building, Cox said.
Stuttgart Fire Chief Billy Burns said when he and his firefighters arrived at the blaze just after 3 a.m., the structure had already begun to collapse, preventing them from "going inside the whole building."
The county's 911 calls Tuesday were being handled by the Stuttgart Police Department, and calls to offices that had been in the annex were forwarded to mobile phones or a main line in the nearby circuit courthouse.
"We hope to at least have the phone systems back online by Friday," Cox said.
The remaining walls of the two-story annex were being knocked down by a backhoe late Tuesday afternoon out of concern that they would collapse, Cox said. The building on South College Street was built in 1918 and has been used as a courthouse annex since 1992, the county judge said.
Arkansas County has county seats in both Stuttgart and DeWitt. He said that prevented the fire from "being a total disaster for county government."
Cox said backup files for the offices in the burned structure are at the county courthouse in DeWitt.
On Tuesday afternoon, county workers in Stuttgart were busy setting up temporary offices in the adjacent Arkansas County Circuit Courthouse.
LaDondria Anderson, who was doing laundry at her sister's house just across the street from the fire, was among the people who reported the blaze Tuesday morning. She said she dialed 911 with her baby in her arms and was scared that the building might explode.
The fire scene became a top attraction in Stuttgart on Tuesday, as residents drove by and walked past to take a look.
Stuttgart resident Grady Hodges said the fire was tough to watch.
"It's a part of our history going up in flames," said Hodges. "I am just thankful no one got hurt. That's the main thing."
Rolanda Jenkins said she took her two children down to see the fire early Tuesday morning. She called it witnessing history.
"I told them to take a good look because one day this is something they can tell their own kids about," Jenkins said. "We have been taking pictures and thanking the firefighters when they walk by. This is about the biggest fire we have had here in recent memory."
State Desk on 09/24/2014