CAMDEN — By TAMMY FRAZIER
Managing editor
The State Review Board of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recommended 18 Arkansas properties in 13 counties—including the Washington Street Historic District Boundary Increase at Camden in Ouachita County—for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places when it met on April 4, states a news release.
The announcement was made in late March that the area was in Camden had been recommended for nomination to the register.
The Washington Street Historic District Boundary Increase would expand the existing district by adding 27 buildings, many built in the 1920s and 1930s
“The residences in the Agee Street blocks would enrich the Washington District’s presentation by including one of Camden’s two oldest structures - the Rowland Smith house (c.1857), already listed on the National Register, but mainly by accentuating the vitality of 1920s-1930s oil boom expansion,” according to the National Register nomination. “While most of the houses were of modest size, a few were among the town’s more notable ones and home to some of the community’s leading citizens. The houses on Agee Street, like the houses in the original boundaries of the Washington Street Historic District, exhibit some of the popular styles of the first half of the twentieth century.”
Other properties recommended for nomination to the National Register are Mosaic Templars State Temple and Fulk-Arkansas Democrat Building at Little Rock and the Carmichael House in the Landmark community in Pulaski County; Cleveland Arms at Hot Springs in Garland County; Lockesburg Gymnasium at Lockesburg in Sevier County; Schumaker Naval Ammunition Depot Barracks Buildings and Schumaker Naval Ammunition Depot Administration Building at East Camden in Calhoun County; Mount Salem Church and School near Paris in Logan County; C.A. Stuck and Sons Lumber Office Building at Jonesboro in Craighead County; Nevada County Courthouse at Prescott in Nevada County; Goodwin Field Administration Building at El Dorado in Union County; Eureka Springs Cemetery at Eureka Springs in Carroll County; Carpenter Building at Gentry in Benton County; Deepwood House at Fayetteville in Washington County; Prairie Grove Commercial Historic District and North Mock Street Commercial Historic District at Prairie Grove in Washington County, and Farm #266 (Johnny Cash Boyhood Home) at Dyess in Mississippi County.
The board listed Lines Cemetery near Preston in Faulkner County, Petit Jean Mountain Cemetery near Winrock in Conway County, Dierks Lumber Company Building at Mountain Pine in Garland County, Schumaker Naval Ammunition Depot Laundry Building at East Camden in Calhoun County, Ellis Building at Fayetteville and Harrell Cemetery near Cincinnati in Washington County on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places. The Arkansas Register recognizes historically significant properties that do not meet National Register requirements.
The AHPP is the Department of Arkansas Heritage division that identifies, evaluates, registers and preserves the state’s cultural resources. Other divisions are the Arkansas Arts Council, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Delta Cultural Center, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, the Historic Arkansas Museum and the Arkansas State Archives.