Appreciating Arkansas Architecture (Bill Bowden Commentary)

Like many people from Arkansas, I was ashamed of my roots. I came from a long line of hillbillies. When I was growing up in the 1960s, hillbillies were a source of humor across the nation. It was particularly bad for Southerners, but if you were from Arkansas, it was even worse.

“The Beverly Hillbillies” was the No. 1 show on television. The fictional Clampett family hailed from the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. After striking oil, they loaded an old truck, and like the Joads of Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath,” the Clampetts headed for California.

Jed Clampett, the paterfamilias of the Clampett clan, reminded me a lot of my grandfather.

I remember traveling across the state from the Delta, where I grew up, to Pope County to visit relatives. We would occasionally stop at a Stuckey’s store, and I would look at the hillbilly souvenirs, small wooden outhouses with doors that opened to reveal someone inside, caught with their pants down. These souvenirs of Arkansas were all labeled “made in Japan.”

They were good folks we were going to visit, but they were definitely country. My Uncle Truman always kept his glass eye in the ashtray and Popsicles in the freezer for the kids. Every time we visited, my grandfather gave me a sack of pennies. They told stories of Model A Fords, hard work on the farm and things that happened before electricity came to the hills of Arkansas. Of course, that was excruciating for me to endure.

It wasn’t until I was in college and read Donald Harington’s book “Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks” that I began to appreciate this hillbilly heritage.

Through architecture, Harington told the story of Jacob Ingledew, based loosely on the life of Issac Murphy, a teacher and lawyer who served as a Senator and Representative from Madison County. In 1861, Murphy was the only person to vote against Arkansas seceding from the Union. He later served as the state’s governor.

This issue of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal focuses on architects and engineers, so I figured it was a good time to take a look at the history of Arkansas Ozarks architecture.

It gave me a chance to see some interesting buildings close up and learn a little more about our history.

People who drive down U.S. Highway 62 in Prairie Grove probably don’t realize the log cabin in Prairie Grove Battlefield Park was built in 1834. The two-story Latta House is still solid as a rock. It was moved from Evansville and reassembled at the park in 1958. The park has several other buildings that are more than 100 years old.

A century-old log dogtrot house at the park was also of particular interest to me. Dogtrots had a covered hallway (open to the outdoors at each end) between the two main rooms. They were named dogtrots because the hallway made a good home for the family dog.

My mother grew up in a dogtrot house near Russellville. In the winter, when the family woke up in the morning, the hallway would often be filled with homeless men who had wandered in from the train that ran through the nearby field. The dogtrot hallway offered some shelter, and warmth emanated through the walls from the fireplaces. If there was extra food that day, these men might also get a little breakfast. They weren’t bums in the sense that they wouldn’t work. It was during the Great Depression, and there were few opportunities in this land, so they travel across the nation looking for whatever work they could get.

Northwest Arkansas is also home to several Civil War-era homes that are still in good shape, from the 1832 Ridge House (Fayetteville’s oldest standing home) to the 1875 Peel House Mansion in Bentonville.

There are many unique houses in south Fayetteville and Prairie Grove that were built in the 1920s and ’30s with sandstone from a quarry in Prairie Grove. Architect Albert Skiles calls them giraffe houses because of their spotted appearance.

The area is fortunate to have several modern buildings designed by E. Fay Jones of Fayetteville, who won the American Institute of Architects’ gold medal for architecture in 1990.

This architecture is part of who we are in the Arkansas Ozarks.

My family is all gone now, and I wish I had paid attention to the stories they told.

I remember my mother asking me on more than one occasion, “Just who do you think you are?”

I didn’t know the answer to that question then, but I have an idea now.

So, please take the opportunity to look around and enjoy our heritage. There is much we can learn from the past.