Levon Helm's boyhood home in Marvell has been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
The house, which was originally in Turkey Scratch, was moved to a pecan grove in Monroe County and then to Marvell in 2017 to avoid demolition. The following year, it was added to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places.
The restored house was opened to the public in 2019 as a museum. More than 800 people from the U.S. and abroad have toured the Helm house.
Ann Ballard Bryan thinks it's ready for National Register recognition.
"If they say no, then we know at least we tried," said Bryan, who recently retired from her job as an instructor at the University of Central Arkansas.
Born May 26, 1940, in Elaine, Mark Lavon "Levon" Helm was a singer, drummer and mandolin player for The Band, which backed Bob Dylan in the 1960s.
The Band went on to record 10 studio albums of its own. During his solo career, Helm won Grammy awards for his albums "Dirt Farmer," "Electric Dirt" and "Ramble at the Ryman."
Helm, who also had an acting career, died of throat cancer in 2012 at the age of 71.
"When faced with demolition, the Helm home and two additional small farm houses nearby were purchased by Richard Butler and Jeremy Carroll," according to the National Register nomination prepared by Bryan and Marvell Mayor Lee Guest. "All three houses were moved from their original location in order to save them from demolition. Mr. Butler and Mr. Carroll stored the homes and eventually donated them to the Marvell Civic Club when land could be secured."
Buildings moved from their original locations aren't normally eligible for the National Register. But they can qualify if they fall within certain categories.
The Helm house was nominated under Criteria Consideration B as a building that has been moved but is "a significant structure most importantly associated with a historic person," according to the nomination.
Helm was "The Godfather of Americana Music," wrote Bryan and Guest, borrowing a phrase from a Boston Globe article about Helm.
"He was a multi-award-winning American musician and actor who achieved fame as the drummer, song writer, and one of the vocalists for The Band and as a solo artist," according to the nomination. "A multi-instrumentalist, Levon was known for his deep southern stories and southern voice."
Helm went to school in Marvell, 8 miles south of Turkey Scratch, so it was a logical place to move the house, said Bryan.
The Helm house is an elevated, small, cypress, single-story, pier-and-beam building with a corrugated sheet metal roof, according to the nomination.
"The structure of the home is simply designed and reflects the common share cropper/tenant style dwelling of the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta," wrote Bryan and Guest. "The home features the original siding and front porch that extends the entire length of the structure. Also original to the structure is a small back porch on the rear, northeast corner. Wooden beams on the porches support the roof. Each side elevation has one four-over-four window. Window and door openings were designed for cross ventilation; a technique of utmost importance due to the hot and humid climate in Phillips County and the Arkansas/Mississippi Delta."
Bryan and Guest also nominated Helm's house under Criterion B, which applies to properties associated with people whose specific contributions to history can be identified and documented.
Earlier this month, the State Review Board of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program voted to send the Helm house nomination to Washington, D.C., for the National Park Service to consider.
Before the vote, Barbie Washburn, president of the Marvell Civic Club, told the board she had put her "heart and soul" in the Helm house project for five or six years.
"But more important than that is I see the visitors every day that come through here," she said. "It's just amazing to me that somebody from another country would come to a town with a population of about 900 to see an old shotgun house. It's really been phenomenal [all] the visitors we've had."
Greg Spradlin, a musician, spoke to the board about Arkansas' musical heritage.
Spradlin described himself as a "longtime music traveler through the Delta looking for scraps of whatever's left that isn't burned down or buried."
Spradlin said people come from all over the world to see Helm's house in Marvell. He said many of them value Arkansas' music heritage more than we do sometimes.
Spradlin said Marvell is along a corridor of sorts that includes Cotton Plant and Brinkley.
Cotton Plant is where Sister Rosetta Tharpe was born and spent the first few years of her life. Tharpe was "one of gospel music's first superstars, the first gospel performer to record for a major record label (Decca), and an early crossover from gospel to secular music," according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. "Tharpe has been cited as an influence by numerous musicians, including Bob Dylan, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Arkansan Johnny Cash."
Brinkley was home to Louis Jordan, a vocalist, bandleader and saxophonist who "ruled the charts, stage, screen, and airwaves of the 1940s and profoundly influenced the creators of rhythm and blues, rock and roll and post-World War II blues," according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
Spradlin described Tharp as the godmother of rock and roll and Jordan as the godfather of rock and roll.
"There's not a brick left in Cotton Plant of anything that Sister Rosetta touched -- the church, the house, nothing," Spradlin told the board. "There is Louis Jordan's house, which people valiantly tried to save. That is long gone. There is not a splinter left of that.
"I would just encourage the board to consider the value of this house," Spradlin said of the Helm home. "Though it may not have period-correct shingles, it is valuable to the history of music, to international music fans and to Arkansas, where it is high time we put our music history on the front page."
The nomination notes that Dylan made a secret appearance to the Helm house in Marvell in 2022.
Before playing with Dylan, Helm and other members of The Band had backed Ronnie Hawkins, a rockabilly singer from Huntsville who moved to Canada and had a following there. Hawkins died last year.
Although his roots are in Phillips County, Helm lived in Springdale in the 1980s. But most of his later years were spent in Woodstock, N.Y., where he held regular "midnight ramble" concerts in his barn.
Other Arkansas properties nominated to the National Register this month include:
Railroad Call Historic District Additional Documentation and Boundary Increase – Little Rock
Arkansas State Highway Department Headquarters – Little Rock
Mooshian-Brewer House – Little Rock
Roland Cutoff Site – Pulaski County
La Belle Creole – Roland
Eliza Miller Junior and Senior High School – Helena-West Helena
First Presbyterian Church – Hope
Tisdale Store/Goshen Post Office – Goshen
It may be the end of January before the Historic Preservation folks get a reply from the National Park Service about the nominations.
A map showing the location of Marvell.
Levon Helm, center, performs with his band on the Don Imus show at New York's Town Hall during his return to radio Monday morning Dec. 3, 2007. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)