I’m Kyle Kellams, and this is West Lafayette in Fayetteville. Less than a block away from the busy five lanes of College Avenue, there is a parking garage here connected to a church. You can probably hear a preschool behind me.
Previously at this location, there was a modest two-story building that decades ago was home to Brown’s Grocery Store. In June 1933, Brown’s was robbed by members of Bonnie and Clyde’s gang. Earlier this century, the former Brown’s Grocery was taken down.
The organization Preserve Arkansas annually compiles a list of historic and important places that they call the Most Endangered Places in the state. On the 2025 list, East Mountain Cemetery in Fayetteville and the Duncan Hill neighborhood, about a 25-minute walk from right here.
Most days right now, the Duncan Hill neighborhood sounds like this. Plenty of construction as a significant multi-story housing project becomes reality.
Rachel Patton, executive director of Preserve Arkansas, says transformation like this one is one of the reasons for creating a “Most Endangered Places in Arkansas” list.
Patton: Yes, that neighborhood is changing. It has been changing drastically over the last 10 years or so, and I feel like it’s just accelerated. That neighborhood was placed on the list because of the extreme development pressures it’s facing. It’s already lost a lot of its historic fabric to large student housing complexes, which I know the Fayetteville Planning Commission and City Council are concerned about. They’ve done what they can up to this point to be more thoughtful about allowing those student housing complexes to come in, with the conditional-use permit process now in place at the city planning level.
But the Duncan Hill neighborhood — it’s such a nice neighborhood because it’s got a mix and variety of housing stock, or it did before all of these complexes came in. It was a place where you could have students living in a house or duplex or in a small quad apartment building alongside families with young children, alongside elderly folks. It was kind of a mixed neighborhood.
And I actually lived in that neighborhood when I was in graduate school at the U of A, so it’s near and dear to me. I hate to see that fabric being eroded for things that probably are not going to be as in high demand maybe in the next 10 years and not as well kept.
Kellams: For people who aren’t familiar with that neighborhood — for decades, as you mentioned, it was a mix. There were bungalows, two-bedroom houses, and students had lived there for decades. But with what has been, in the last several years, almost a doubling of student population, the demand has gone up for student housing.
Patton: Yeah, it has. That neighborhood is in close proximity — just south of the University of Arkansas campus and very convenient to all of downtown Fayetteville, in easy walking distance not only to campus but to businesses along Dickson Street and the square and other areas of downtown. That’s what makes it so desirable.
It was on the Most Endangered list because we were opposed to the recent effort to rezone the properties in that neighborhood that included the Putnam House and the Beverly Manor apartment complex. Preserve Arkansas was opposed even before the Most Endangered Places list was announced, and we were glad to see the Fayetteville City Council uphold the Planning Commission’s decision not to allow that rezoning.
Kellams: One of the things I appreciate about the Endangered Places list is there’s description, there’s history, but also, at the end of each entry, what it would mean for a successful save. For instance, for East Mountain Cemetery in Fayetteville, which dates back to the first third of the 19th century, it’s written a successful save of the cemetery would include arranging for ground-penetrating radar to identify unmarked graves, restoration of damaged markers, installation of new fencing, and mitigation of drainage issues on the hillside site. It’s not just a “let’s preserve something.” There’s sort of an itemized list of what that means.
Patton: Right. The historic preservation is not — we’re not trying to preserve things frozen in time ever, I don’t think. Yes, there are museums, and that’s great, but the majority of historic preservation work that happens in Arkansas and across the country is not concerned with freezing things in time. We want to save things. If it’s a building, we want to put it back into active use. If it’s not already in active use, we want to have it at its highest and best use.
For purposes of a cemetery, then yes, we have these steps that we can lay out to better preserve the site and make it more easily accessible for people to come and visit. The key, I think, is to make recommendations for how we get to our goal whenever we put these things on the list. We don’t just want to say, “Yeah, they’re endangered, pay attention.” That’s part of the benefit of being on the list — that we can try to help the people who own these sites and who care about them prioritize needs and take the next steps forward.
Kellams: I’m speaking with Rachel Patton, who’s executive director of Preserve Arkansas, discussing the 2025 list of Most Endangered Places in Arkansas.
So if the Hill neighborhood in Fayetteville is challenged by expansion and growth, the Passmore House in Hot Springs is facing an uncertain future because of neglect. What can you tell us about the Passmore House?
Patton: The Passmore House is significant in Hot Springs. I really think it may be the oldest residential structure in the city. It dates to 1873. It’s unique because of its architectural style. There are not many Second Empire-style buildings in Arkansas as a whole, and that’s one of the few and finest examples in Hot Springs.
If you drive past it on Park Avenue, it’s almost impossible to see the Passmore House unless you know exactly where to look because it’s so overgrown. It’s been in a state of disrepair and deterioration for many years. The state and the city are fortunate that it has a new owner who wants to preserve the house and see it rehabilitated. Because the house is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, it’s eligible for both federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits, which could greatly ease the burden of the cost.
Kellams: There have been some recent changes to the State Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, haven’t there?
Patton: There have been changes to our state tax credit. The legislature implemented the different tiered percentage program to our state historic tax credit in the 2023 legislative session. Now the credit is tiered based on the population where the project takes place.
Any city with 50,000 or more people has a percentage of 30% of your qualified rehabilitation expenses, and that’s the lowest percentage. In an unincorporated area, it’s 25 percent. It’s tiered to incentivize rehabilitation, particularly in rural communities.
Kellams: This list has been in operation for 26 years. Are there success stories?
Patton: Oh yes, of course. Probably our most well-known success story for something that was on the Most Endangered Places list is the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home and the Dyess Colony Administration buildings and the theater at Dyess. Most people should be familiar with that by now. It’s been rehabilitated for several years, thanks to Arkansas State University and their Heritage Sites program, which was a huge save.
I’ve heard from the board president of Preserve Arkansas from back when it was listed — I think 2006 or 2007 — that it literally broke the website because it got picked up worldwide. Media were covering something to do with Johnny Cash, and the Preserve Arkansas website went down because it got so many hits.
In recent years, a project that’s gotten a lot of attention that’s not all the way done yet but will get done is the Latimore Tourist Home in Russellville. I love to talk about that project. That house is listed in the National Register. It was a Green Book site, which hopefully most folks are familiar with — the Negro Motorist Green Book — because they made a movie about it. That book was in existence in the early 20th century to identify safe lodging, restaurants, and service stations for African American travelers during Jim Crow.
The Latimore Tourist Home was one of those sites that offered meals and lodging in Russellville. The story of how it’s been saved after it was put on the endangered list is quite impressive. It had to be relocated just a very short distance away to a site near the city park where the African American school used to sit. It’s been an extraordinary effort by the city of Russellville and this newly formed nonprofit organization, the Friends of the Latimore Tourist Home. They’ve used grant funds from the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and received lots of community donations, in-kind and cash donations, and they’re well underway.
It’s a wonderful story.
Kellams: It’s a great example that places listed on the endangered list aren’t just three-dimensional structures or places. They’re connections to history. Perhaps because the Latimore House is being saved, people who might not otherwise know about Jim Crow or Green Books, or what society or class or race conditions were like decades ago, might now have a chance to do further study because there is an embodiment of those times.
Patton: That’s true. That’s a large part of why we do what we do — why we want to preserve historic places around the state — because they’re the tangible reminders of our history. They hold all of our stories. That’s exactly right. This site, once it’s completed, will interpret that history and serve as a community gathering place that’s much needed.
Kellams: And of course, there are so many places that have been lost. I’m thinking of a little structure that used to be in Fayetteville. It had been a grocery store at one time. I think we have confirmation it was at one point robbed by members of Bonnie and Clyde’s gang. It’s long gone now. And once a structure like that’s gone, it’s gone. A lot of the easy history to know about that is gone as well.
Patton: Right. These things are irreplaceable resources. I was thinking earlier about which areas of the state maybe face the most challenge with preserving historic places. In my mind, it’s both the fastest-growing areas of the state and the smallest communities in the state.
But in Northwest Arkansas in particular, the growth and development are just so rapid, and it happens so fast. Once things are gone, the landscape completely changes, and it can be unrecognizable in some places around Northwest Arkansas if you haven’t been there in a while.
We just need to be cautious. Development’s good. Preservation is not anti-development in any way. We just want to maintain the unique character of these special places in Arkansas along with development. We want new development to be sensitive to our existing buildings as well.
Kellams: One of the truly special spots in Arkansas is Highway 65. If you’ve ever gone to Leslie or Marshall or Gilbert, there are some really cool places there, some thriving relatively new businesses, some with legendary status. Isn’t there a chance to tour part of 65 with Preserve Arkansas coming up?
Patton: There is. You’re talking about our Preservation Ramble. It’s coming up on Saturday, Nov. 8. To back up, the Ramble is a bus trip. There’s an option for people to drive their own vehicles if they don’t want to get on the bus, but the bus is fun. You’ll learn a lot more about the history along the way if you’re on the bus to listen to us talk.
We’re also a pretty fun crew and serve you Bloody Marys, mimosas — the whole nine yards — on your way on Highway 65. It includes meals and historic site tours. We’ll make stops between North Little Rock and Gilbert along Highway 65 this year, spending quite a bit of time off the bus at Gilbert touring several historic buildings and going down to the Buffalo River, and then working our way back.
Kellams: Rachel Patton is executive director of Preserve Arkansas. The group’s 2025 Most Endangered Places in Arkansas list was released earlier this fall. You can see that list and learn more about the organization and what it does at PreserveArkansas.org.
This year’s list includes two spots in Fayetteville — the Duncan Hill neighborhood and East Mountain Cemetery.
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