Carnahan Cemetery, looking west toward Oklahoma.

NOTE: This is an update of a blog originally published in 2013.

I recently participated in a driving tour of the west Washington County community of Cane Hill to get a sneak peek at preservation efforts being undertaken by the Historic Cane Hill organization. A highlight of the trip was a visit to Carnahan Cemetery, established with the burial of John Billingsley on Nov. 14, 1827. The old graveyard is high atop a windswept hill overlooking a lovely and expansive valley. To the west, seemingly just a stone’s throw away, is Oklahoma.

Immediately upon setting foot inside Carnahan Cemetery, I found myself transported back to 1837. On October 13 of that year, some 360 Cherokees led by Lt. B. B. Cannon left the Cherokee Agency in Tennessee bound for Indian Territory. They were going voluntarily as members of the “Treaty Party,” a small group of Cherokees who supported the Treaty of New Echota ceding all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River in exchange for $5 million and land in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Most Cherokees protested the Treaty of New Echota and refused to leave their ancestral homeland. This faceoff with the federal government resulted in the forced removal of thousands of Cherokees, a dark time in our history known as the Trail of Tears.

The Cannon detachment traveled overland through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas on their trek to Indian Territory, arriving there December 27, 1837. Sickness and death accompanied them along every step of the ten-week journey. It is heartbreaking to read B. B. Cannon’s journal and his stark mentions of death along the way. Seventeen people lost their lives: fourteen children (including one “black boy”) and three adults.

For the Charles Timberlake family, the journey was horrific. Smoker Timberlake, age about eleven, was buried on December 17, 1837, after the detachment passed through Springfield, Missouri. Ten days later, on December 27, Smoker’s thirteen-year-old sister, Alsey, was buried somewhere near Cane Hill, Arkansas. The next day, December 28, another Timberlake child (whose name was unrecorded by Cannon) was buried in Indian Territory, most likely in the vicinity of present-day Stilwell, Oklahoma.

Receipt to James Coulter showing payment of $2.25 “for furnishing a coffin for a deceased Cherokee belonging to a detachment of Cherokees on their way to the west.” National Archives and Records Administration

A receipt discovered in the National Archives by members of the Oklahoma Chapter of the National Trail of Tears Association shows payment of $2.25 on December 27, 1837, to James Coulter of Cane Hill “for furnishing a coffin for a deceased Cherokee belonging to a detachment of Cherokees on their way to the west.” December 27, 1837—the day B. B. Cannon recorded the burial of Alsey Timberlake. The “deceased Cherokee” listed in the James Coulter receipt is thirteen-year-old Alsey Timberlake.

Land records show that James Coulter didn’t live too far from Carnahan Cemetery. Could this old burial ground be the final resting place of Alsey Timberlake? We’ll probably never know for sure. But I can tell you one thing for certain. On that day, in that place, high atop a hill looking west toward Oklahoma, Alsey Timberlake was right there with me.

Susan Young is the Shiloh Museum’s outreach coordinator. 

The Manuel family Victory Garden on East Center Street, Fayetteville, May 1943. From left: Chris Manuel, Bayley Joiner (block chairman of the food-for-victory drive), and Lola Young Manuel. Northwest Arkansas Times, photographer. Washington County Historical Society Collection (P-2437)

Hopeful that the end of World War II was on the horizon, in January 1945 the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce hired two engineers to envision the “Fayetteville of Tomorrow” by positioning the town “to receive the most benefit from post-war construction programs.” Working with input from the Chamber, city government, citizen groups, church leaders, and others, the resulting document—Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan—was published that fall. Key components were the development of a civic center west of the town square, a hospital expansion, the rerouting of a major highway, and the improvement or development of through-roads, parks, schools, and utilities.

Authors and contributors to the Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan, 1945. Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)

Authors and contributors to the Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan, 1945. Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)

I came across the plan while reviewing a large donation of photographic and archival materials from Ann Wiggans Sugg. Curious, I began reading and was soon struck by how easily the plan’s proponents recommended the destruction of a long-standing, close-knit neighborhood, a neighborhood whose residents likely had no say in the matter. Despite the plan’s carefully couched reasons as to why everyone would benefit, the neighborhood’s removal would further marginalize an already marginalized population.

The report’s authors dubbed Fayetteville “A City of Homes, A Place Where People Live.” Back then the town’s boundaries stretched roughly from the veteran’s hospital in the north, to the western edge of Mount Sequoyah in the east, to U.S. Highway 62 in the south, and to North Garland Avenue on the west. With over 8,200 citizens, its economy relied largely on agricultural products (fresh and processed), the University of Arkansas, and forestry products (lumber and veneer). It was expected that population, land area, retail and trade, industry, and tourism would continue to grow.

Highway 71 (College Avenue) in front of the Washington County Courthouse, about 1940. Mr. and Mrs. Sherman Hinds Collection (S-87-63-8) 

Transportation needs were a concern. As a major thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 71’s narrow lanes and steep grades posed a problem for commercial trucks traveling through town. The road also cut through the business district, limiting growth and burdening in-city traffic. The solution? Reroute it to the east through Spout Spring.

Spout Spring was a neighborhood settled by formerly enslaved people and their descendants sometime after the Civil War. Encompassing a small valley with a spring-fed creek just east of what was then the Washington County Courthouse, the community core included East Meadow, Center, Mountain, and Rock Streets along with South Willow and Washington Avenues.(1) Its cornerstone institutions were the Mission School for Negroes Only (1866, renamed Henderson School in the 1890s), St. James Methodist Episcopal Church (1868), St. James Baptist Church (1885), and Lincoln Elementary School (1936), which replaced Henderson as the neighborhood school.

Susan Marshbank Manuel at her home on North Olive Avenue, Fayetteville, 1940s–early 1950s. “Mama Susie,” as she was known, offered accommodations for African-American travelers. Her home was listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book from 1939-1956.(2) Betty Hayes Davis Collection (S-2015-71-12)

One of the first formerly enslaved African-Americans to purchase land near the core of Spout Springs was Tabitha Marshbank Taylor. In 1879 she bought a large lot on North Olive Avenue (3), which provided space for her and her descendants to build homes.(4) More folks bought property in the valley as early as the 1890s.(5) Many of Spout Spring’s residents worked as housekeepers, laborers, railroad porters, cooks, dishwashers, and shoe-shiners, in large part the only jobs that were open to them. Some operated small businesses out of their homes such as cafés, barbershops, and juke joints. Extra income was earned by renting rooms to travelling workers and, once it was integrated in 1948, University of Arkansas students. Because Fayetteville’s high school was for whites only, Black students seeking higher education were forced to move to larger Arkansas cities like Fort Smith and Pine Bluff or elsewhere to earn their diplomas.

High-school graduate Betty Hayes with her mother Clara Manuel Hayes in the yard of their home on North Olive Avenue, 1945. Betty lived in St. Louis with her uncle while attending Sumner High School. Also seen is the home of Tabitha Marshbank Taylor, Betty’s great grandmother, who bought the property in 1879. Betty Hayes Davis Collection (S-2015-71-50)

Spout Spring is identified as “Tin Cup” in the plan. According to Jessie B. Bryant, civic leader and founder of Northwest Arkansas Free Health and Dental Center, the name was used by white businessmen who stopped by the area for a cup of cool spring water and a quick bite of lunch. In a 2000 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette she said, “That’s the misconception of it all. It wasn’t part of the Black neighborhood. . . . if you mention ‘Tin Cup’ it’s automatically a derogatory term for the people in the community. But it had nothing to do with the community.”(6) University of Arkansas professor Dr. Gordon Morgan and his wife Dr. Izola Preston Morgan said much the same in a 1975 Northwest Arkansas Times article. “The Black community has never really considered itself as having a separate identity from that of Fayetteville at large. It has resisted such names as the Can, the Hollow, Tin Cup, and even East Fayetteville. These names have been given it by outsiders . . . who have had no practical knowledge of [the] history of the community.”(7)

Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)	Plate No. V depicts the proposed route change of U.S. Highway 71 through Fayetteville. A star has been added to mark the location of the Washington County Courthouse.
Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)	Plate No. VII depicts a closeup of the route through the Spout Spring neighborhood, with proposed recreational parks and parking lot. A star has been added to mark the location of the Washington County Courthouse.

The plan labeled Spout Spring as having sub-standard housing and deemed it a poor use of land. Because the area was considered a “natural beauty spot which should be preserved” and as “an area that will do much toward selling Fayetteville to the traveling public,” planners proposed rerouting Highway 71 east through Spout Spring. The adjacent land would be used to create two recreational parks and a parking lot for the use of citizens and travelers.

The suggestion was made to move the valley’s African-American residents to a federally funded, segregated “Negro Housing Project” just beyond the southeastern edge of town, in the belief that “when two races are mixed in a neighborhood all property loses value.” An adjacent ten-acre park centering on Wood Avenue would be developed “to serve the Negro population for recreation, school and church facilities.” Moving the city’s Black residents away from downtown meant that their new neighborhood would be “separate from areas of thickly settled white population” while being “close enough to the Business Section of the city as practical.” In other words, close enough for Blacks to continue to work for whites, but not so close as to impact their neighborhoods.

Government-sanctioned segregation was hardly a new idea. During the Great Depression of the 1930s the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure home mortgages in or near existing Black communities, considering the risk of falling property values too great. In urban areas, African Americans were pushed towards segregated housing projects which were often cut off from the rest of the city by major roads and highways.

Ada Lee Smith Shook Collection (S-97-60-35)

This map depicts the locations of Spout Spring’s cornerstone institutions and the homes of some of the people pictured in this blog, contrasted against the proposed changes to the Spout Spring neighborhood and its relocation. A base map was drawn in 1936 by Fayetteville city engineer W. Carl Smith, which in turn was used as the base map for the various illustrations found in Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan, 1945. Neither map is to scale.

The authors seemed confident that the “Federal Government [would] undoubtedly furnish all or part of the money for many of these projects.” Following the plan’s publication Fayetteville moved ahead with several projects, largely using city funds with some federal money for planning. Land was purchased and plans were made to expand the hospital. A new water-pumping station was built and improvements made to water distribution lines and the sewer system. In need of housing for returning World War II veterans, land adjoining City Park (now known as Wilson Park) was secured for a short-term trailer village, and later used to expand the park.

But the rerouting of Highway 71 through Spout Spring never happened. A new proposal had emerged by 1947 to build an overhead viaduct between Rock and Third Streets to overcome the steep hill south of the courthouse. Mayor George T. Sanders believed it could be done “at much less expense than condemning and buying property elsewhere.”(8) Alternate routes were later proposed but ultimately the city couldn’t secure the funds to purchase the needed right-of-way.

Students with their teacher at Washington Elementary School, 1966-1967. Northwest Arkansas Times Collection (NWAT Box 15 66.413)

Spout Springs continued to be “a place where people live.” While the neighborhood remained largely segregated for several more decades, its people did not. Within days of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Fayetteville’s School Board unanimously voted to integrate its high school. They considered several factors—compliance with the ruling, a concerted push by Black and white community members, and the financial burden of paying for African-American high-school students to be educated elsewhere.(9) That fall seven Black students were welcomed in what was said to be a smooth, orderly fashion. Not that there weren’t difficulties throughout the year, but they were nothing like what befell the students who attempted to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. While Fayetteville’s junior high was integrated in 1955 it took another ten years before the school board integrated the elementary schools. In response to community petitions, the city’s movie theaters and the Wilson Park swimming pool were opened to Blacks in 1963. The following year Melvin E. Dowell was the first alumnus of Lincoln Elementary and Fayetteville High to receive a degree from the University of Arkansas.

FOOTNOTES
1. Information gleaned from the 1940 U.S. Census, based on race, house number, and street name.
2. Edmark, David. “Fayetteville in the Green Book: ‘A Knit Community.’” Flashback, Fall 2019.
3. Email from Tony Wappel, 10-5-2018.
4. Interviews with Betty Hayes Davis, 2012-2016.
5. Johnson, Eric. “Spout Spring in Memory and History.” Flashback, Spring 2017.
6. Schulte, Bret. “Jessie Ballie Carr Bryant: Helping the human race.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11-12-2000.
7. Morgan, Gordon and Izola Preston Morgan. “History Of Black Community Woven With City’s.” Northwest Arkansas Times, 7-16-1978.
8. Northwest Arkansas Times. “Rerouting of Highway 71 Up South College With Construction of Viaduct Proposed.” 4-15-1947.
9. Adams, Julianne Lewis and Thomas A. DeBlack. Civil Obedience: An Oral History of School Desegregation in Fayetteville, Arkansas, 1954–1965. University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville: 1994.

Marie Demeroukas is the Shiloh Museum’s photo archivist/research librarian. 

The Manuel family Victory Garden on East Center Street, Fayetteville, May 1943. From left: Chris Manuel, Bayley Joiner (block chairman of the food-for-victory drive), and Lola Young Manuel. Northwest Arkansas Times, photographer. Washington County Historical Society Collection (P-2437)

Hopeful that the end of World War II was on the horizon, in January 1945 the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce hired two engineers to envision the “Fayetteville of Tomorrow” by positioning the town “to receive the most benefit from post-war construction programs.” Working with input from the Chamber, city government, citizen groups, church leaders, and others, the resulting document—Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan—was published that fall. Key components were the development of a civic center west of the town square, a hospital expansion, the rerouting of a major highway, and the improvement or development of through-roads, parks, schools, and utilities.

Authors and contributors to the Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan, 1945. Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)

Authors and contributors to the Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan, 1945. Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)

I came across the plan while reviewing a large donation of photographic and archival materials from Ann Wiggans Sugg. Curious, I began reading and was soon struck by how easily the plan’s proponents recommended the destruction of a long-standing, close-knit neighborhood, a neighborhood whose residents likely had no say in the matter. Despite the plan’s carefully couched reasons as to why everyone would benefit, the neighborhood’s removal would further marginalize an already marginalized population.

The report’s authors dubbed Fayetteville “A City of Homes, A Place Where People Live.” Back then the town’s boundaries stretched roughly from the veteran’s hospital in the north, to the western edge of Mount Sequoyah in the east, to U.S. Highway 62 in the south, and to North Garland Avenue on the west. With over 8,200 citizens, its economy relied largely on agricultural products (fresh and processed), the University of Arkansas, and forestry products (lumber and veneer). It was expected that population, land area, retail and trade, industry, and tourism would continue to grow.

Highway 71 (College Avenue) in front of the Washington County Courthouse, about 1940. Mr. and Mrs. Sherman Hinds Collection (S-87-63-8) 

Transportation needs were a concern. As a major thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 71’s narrow lanes and steep grades posed a problem for commercial trucks traveling through town. The road also cut through the business district, limiting growth and burdening in-city traffic. The solution? Reroute it to the east through Spout Spring.

Spout Spring was a neighborhood settled by formerly enslaved people and their descendants sometime after the Civil War. Encompassing a small valley with a spring-fed creek just east of what was then the Washington County Courthouse, the community core included East Meadow, Center, Mountain, and Rock Streets along with South Willow and Washington Avenues.(1) Its cornerstone institutions were the Mission School for Negroes Only (1866, renamed Henderson School in the 1890s), St. James Methodist Episcopal Church (1868), St. James Baptist Church (1885), and Lincoln Elementary School (1936), which replaced Henderson as the neighborhood school.

Susan Marshbank Manuel at her home on North Olive Avenue, Fayetteville, 1940s–early 1950s. “Mama Susie,” as she was known, offered accommodations for African-American travelers. Her home was listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book from 1939-1956.(2) Betty Hayes Davis Collection (S-2015-71-12)

One of the first formerly enslaved African-Americans to purchase land near the core of Spout Springs was Tabitha Marshbank Taylor. In 1879 she bought a large lot on North Olive Avenue (3), which provided space for her and her descendants to build homes.(4) More folks bought property in the valley as early as the 1890s.(5) Many of Spout Spring’s residents worked as housekeepers, laborers, railroad porters, cooks, dishwashers, and shoe-shiners, in large part the only jobs that were open to them. Some operated small businesses out of their homes such as cafés, barbershops, and juke joints. Extra income was earned by renting rooms to travelling workers and, once it was integrated in 1948, University of Arkansas students. Because Fayetteville’s high school was for whites only, Black students seeking higher education were forced to move to larger Arkansas cities like Fort Smith and Pine Bluff or elsewhere to earn their diplomas.

High-school graduate Betty Hayes with her mother Clara Manuel Hayes in the yard of their home on North Olive Avenue, 1945. Betty lived in St. Louis with her uncle while attending Sumner High School. Also seen is the home of Tabitha Marshbank Taylor, Betty’s great grandmother, who bought the property in 1879. Betty Hayes Davis Collection (S-2015-71-50)

Spout Spring is identified as “Tin Cup” in the plan. According to Jessie B. Bryant, civic leader and founder of Northwest Arkansas Free Health and Dental Center, the name was used by white businessmen who stopped by the area for a cup of cool spring water and a quick bite of lunch. In a 2000 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette she said, “That’s the misconception of it all. It wasn’t part of the Black neighborhood. . . . if you mention ‘Tin Cup’ it’s automatically a derogatory term for the people in the community. But it had nothing to do with the community.”(6) University of Arkansas professor Dr. Gordon Morgan and his wife Dr. Izola Preston Morgan said much the same in a 1975 Northwest Arkansas Times article. “The Black community has never really considered itself as having a separate identity from that of Fayetteville at large. It has resisted such names as the Can, the Hollow, Tin Cup, and even East Fayetteville. These names have been given it by outsiders . . . who have had no practical knowledge of [the] history of the community.”(7)

Plate No. V depicts the proposed route change of U.S. Highway 71 through Fayetteville. A star has been added to mark the location of the Washington County Courthouse. Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)

Plate No. VII depicts a closeup of the route through the Spout Spring neighborhood, with proposed recreational parks and parking lot. A star has been added to mark the location of the Washington County Courthouse. Ann Wiggans Sugg Collection (S-2018-74)

The plan labeled Spout Spring as having sub-standard housing and deemed it a poor use of land. Because the area was considered a “natural beauty spot which should be preserved” and as “an area that will do much toward selling Fayetteville to the traveling public,” planners proposed rerouting Highway 71 east through Spout Spring. The adjacent land would be used to create two recreational parks and a parking lot for the use of citizens and travelers.

The suggestion was made to move the valley’s African-American residents to a federally funded, segregated “Negro Housing Project” just beyond the southeastern edge of town, in the belief that “when two races are mixed in a neighborhood all property loses value.” An adjacent ten-acre park centering on Wood Avenue would be developed “to serve the Negro population for recreation, school and church facilities.” Moving the city’s Black residents away from downtown meant that their new neighborhood would be “separate from areas of thickly settled white population” while being “close enough to the Business Section of the city as practical.” In other words, close enough for Blacks to continue to work for whites, but not so close as to impact their neighborhoods.

Government-sanctioned segregation was hardly a new idea. During the Great Depression of the 1930s the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure home mortgages in or near existing Black communities, considering the risk of falling property values too great. In urban areas, African Americans were pushed towards segregated housing projects which were often cut off from the rest of the city by major roads and highways.

This map depicts the locations of Spout Spring’s cornerstone institutions and the homes of some of the people pictured in this blog, contrasted against the proposed changes to the Spout Spring neighborhood and its relocation. A base map was drawn in 1936 by Fayetteville city engineer W. Carl Smith, which in turn was used as the base map for the various illustrations found in Six Year Public Works Program and Master City Plan, 1945. Neither map is to scale. Ada Lee Smith Shook Collection (S-97-60-35)

The authors seemed confident that the “Federal Government [would] undoubtedly furnish all or part of the money for many of these projects.” Following the plan’s publication Fayetteville moved ahead with several projects, largely using city funds with some federal money for planning. Land was purchased and plans were made to expand the hospital. A new water-pumping station was built and improvements made to water distribution lines and the sewer system. In need of housing for returning World War II veterans, land adjoining City Park (now known as Wilson Park) was secured for a short-term trailer village, and later used to expand the park.

But the rerouting of Highway 71 through Spout Spring never happened. A new proposal had emerged by 1947 to build an overhead viaduct between Rock and Third Streets to overcome the steep hill south of the courthouse. Mayor George T. Sanders believed it could be done “at much less expense than condemning and buying property elsewhere.”(8) Alternate routes were later proposed but ultimately the city couldn’t secure the funds to purchase the needed right-of-way.

Students with their teacher at Washington Elementary School, 1966-1967. Northwest Arkansas Times Collection (NWAT Box 15 66.413)

Spout Springs continued to be “a place where people live.” While the neighborhood remained largely segregated for several more decades, its people did not. Within days of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Fayetteville’s School Board unanimously voted to integrate its high school. They considered several factors—compliance with the ruling, a concerted push by Black and white community members, and the financial burden of paying for African-American high-school students to be educated elsewhere.(9) That fall seven Black students were welcomed in what was said to be a smooth, orderly fashion. Not that there weren’t difficulties throughout the year, but they were nothing like what befell the students who attempted to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. While Fayetteville’s junior high was integrated in 1955 it took another ten years before the school board integrated the elementary schools. In response to community petitions, the city’s movie theaters and the Wilson Park swimming pool were opened to Blacks in 1963. The following year Melvin E. Dowell was the first alumnus of Lincoln Elementary and Fayetteville High to receive a degree from the University of Arkansas.

FOOTNOTES
1. Information gleaned from the 1940 U.S. Census, based on race, house number, and street name.
2. Edmark, David. “Fayetteville in the Green Book: ‘A Knit Community.’” Flashback, Fall 2019.
3. Email from Tony Wappel, 10-5-2018.
4. Interviews with Betty Hayes Davis, 2012-2016.
5. Johnson, Eric. “Spout Spring in Memory and History.” Flashback, Spring 2017.
6. Schulte, Bret. “Jessie Ballie Carr Bryant: Helping the human race.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11-12-2000.
7. Morgan, Gordon and Izola Preston Morgan. “History Of Black Community Woven With City’s.” Northwest Arkansas Times, 7-16-1978.
8. Northwest Arkansas Times. “Rerouting of Highway 71 Up South College With Construction of Viaduct Proposed.” 4-15-1947.
9. Adams, Julianne Lewis and Thomas A. DeBlack. Civil Obedience: An Oral History of School Desegregation in Fayetteville, Arkansas, 1954–1965. University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville: 1994.

Marie Demeroukas is the Shiloh Museum’s photo archivist/research librarian. 

“Stack-Sack” office building in downtown Springdale, 2016. Courtesy Google Maps

As a longtime employee of the museum I have driven various routes through Springdale on my way to work over the years. Occasionally I travel up (or down) North Commercial Street which fronts the west side of the train tracks between Emma and Johnson Avenues in downtown Springdale. A building there always caught my eye. It had such an unusual look about it that I wondered about its history.

Well, a few weeks back I got my answer, and what fun! We were processing a scrapbook once kept by employees of Springdale’s old First National Bank and amongst the material on the bank’s history was tucked an undated Arkansas Gazette newspaper clipping: “State’s First ‘Stack-Sack’ Office Constructed for Springdale Lawyers.” (Research is leading me to believe the article ran sometime in November 1969.)

What’s that? A stack what? There in the article (with pictures) was the whole story about the building. Attorney and former Springdale mayor (1962–1966), Charles E. Davis and his partner, Joe B. Reed, decided to build a new office. They wanted something different, so they decided to use Stack-Sack construction, a new way of building walls made by filling burlap sacks with concrete, stacking them on rebar (steel rods), and then coating the exterior with masonry cement. The technique was developed by Edward T. Dicker, a Dallas builder, in 1966. By 1968 Dicker was selling licenses to contractors in the states and places like, Caracas, Venezuela, and the Pacific island of Saipan. He applied for patents in the United States and Russia and received approval from the Federal Housing Administration for FHA-insured financing. The building method had the advantage of being lower in cost and could be built in much less time than traditional construction.

In Springdale, Francis J. McCourt owned the Stack-Sack franchise for nine Northwest Arkansas counties, according to the news clipping. (McCourt, retired from the railroad and trucking business moved to Springdale about 1960, started a construction business about 1965, and developed two residential areas in town.) According to McCourt, Stack-Sack construction was “strong, fireproof, vermin-proof, sound-proof, and easy to maintain.” At the same time he was constructing the Davis-Reed law office, McCourt was also building a three-bedroom Stack-Sack home in Springdale.

I was so geeked to find the story of this building I shared it with staff and gave Marie Demeroukas, museum librarian, the original clipping for the research files. I kept a copy on my desk to remind me to do more research.

Then on Thursday, August 13, 2020, I was driving to work, heading west on Emma Avenue, and looked over to see Springdale’s Stack-Sack building—”the first ever built in Arkansas”—being demolished! After I put my jaw back in place I pulled over and took some pictures. I also grabbed a small chunk of concrete and burlap to take to the museum. I shared the news with Marie and she immediately suggested we needed a bigger example than the puny piece I had brought back. Aaron Loehndorf, museum collections specialist, overheard and volunteered to go get a bigger (and therefore heavier) relic. About that time museum photographer Bo Williams showed up and Marie asked him to go along and take pictures of remaining walls. So the three of us went over in the museum van. Bo took some great shots of the demolition and Aaron found some dandy examples of the burlap and concrete bags and stucco exterior, which are now resting on a cart in museum storage.

Remaining wall (left) with exposed burlap ends, August 13, 2020.

Remains of demolished walls, August 13, 2020.

Burlap and concrete bags and stucco exterior, now safely in museum storage.

I came back to the museum and researched the Davis-Reed building. Old city directories revealed that Davis and Reed had an office on Mill Street until 1969. By 1970 they were installed in the Stack-Sack building on Commercial Street. Davis kept his law office there into the 1990s. The building was later owned by Jeff Watson, a Davis associate (and current Springdale City Council member). The last occupant was also a law firm. The property sold earlier this year to the same folks who bought the old Ryan’s Department Store and San José Manor buildings around the corner on Emma Avenue.

Downtown Springdale is seeing lots of changes and plans are afoot for development. I guess the old Stack-Sack building, once the first of its kind, had to give way for the future.

Here’s a link to a pdf of the original Arkansas Gazette news clipping found in the First National Bank scrapbook that set this research project in motion. Courtesy Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Here’s a link to a story about the Stack-Sack technique featured in Concrete Construction magazine, March 1971.

Postscript: The site of the former David-Reed building is now a tidy flat lot awaiting development. Francis J. McCourt sold his properties and moved out of state in the 1970s. His Stack-Sack house still stands in Springdale.

A stack-sack residence in Springdale, 2014. Courtesy Google Maps

Carolyn Reno is the Shiloh Museum’s assistant director/collections manager.