Fayetteville Forward Historic and Heritage Resources Group Meets Tonight
The Fayetteville Forward summit may have ended a few months ago, but the initiatives and action items identified at Fayetteville Forward and the groups formed to carry out these items are just getting started.
In fact, over the last few weeks several of the groups formed at the summit have begun work on their respective initiatives, and tonight, the Fayetteville Forward Historic and Heritage Resources Group will meet in the Anne Henry Boardroom of the Fayetteville Public library at 6:30 to discuss ways to preserve the historic places and heritage activities that tell the story of Fayetteville, as well as ways to preserve our cultural identity while fostering healthy growth for our city.
The Historic and Heritage Resources group is led by Fayetteville preservationist Paula Marinoni. All of the Fayetteville Forward action groups are open to the public, and can be found on the Fayetteville Forward website.
You can also track the progress of the city-led Fayetteville Forward action items here.
The meeting of the Historic and Heritage resources group got me thinking. What are some of the historic places in Fayetteville that need to be preserved? What are our traditions? What are some of the things that you’d consider Fayetteville heritage?
Discussion
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By ARKinOK on June 16th, 2009
Thanks for this article. I have wondered how to track the progress of this group. I sincerely hope NWA moves beyond regional in-fighting to create a future of mutual success.
By Tony Wappel on June 16th, 2009
Well to start, there are several historic sites in Fayetteville worth preserving including, but not limited to Old Main, Historic Washington County Court House, Historic Jail, Old Fayetteville Post Office, Train Depot, Headquarters House, original VA Hospital Buildings, Evergreen Cemetery, Walker Cemetery, Confederate Cemetery and hopefully expanded National Cemetery. There are tons of residences both a part of and sepearate from historic districts that should be preserved.
By Urk on June 16th, 2009
OK, here’s one. Fayetteville has a rich and active musical tradition, and for many years our flagship band was the (now retired) Cate Brothers, whose career included 4 major label albums, (1975-1979) 2 smaller label albums, (1970-1972) 5 independently released CDs, (1996-2007) tours of Europe and Japan and performances with (not just opening for but playing music on stage with) the Band, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and the Grateful Dead. They deserve some commemoration, but that’s not who I’m thinking of here. The Cates grew up in all-white (then) Springdale, but got turned onto the style of music they play by (black) artists like Ray Charles and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland by the Jukebox at the Rockwood Club, co-owned by Ronnie Hawkins, whose band, the Hawks, played an aggressive and distinctly southern form of rock and roll and R& B and who included future members of The Band and also some blues and country luminaries.
Hawkins was born around Huntsville but grew up in Fayetteville, was part of the first generation of white rock and rollers in the South. Besides the success of his band, a virtual minor league training center for important figures in roots rock, he’s been internationally known since the 60s, he hosted John Lennon and Yoko, played for presidents and kings, and is still rocking. He’s always kept his Fayetteville roots close to his heart, returning regularly, and even helping out Fayetteville musicians like the great Jojo Thompson when he needed a helping hand. We could show our appreciation of Ronnie a little, but he’s not who I’m talking about. Jojo Thompson was a unique and powerful musical voice who, with a little more respect from club owners and better luck, might have been known as our contribution to the 80s and 90s blues revival, but he’s not who I’m thinking of either.
Ronnie Hawkins learned about, and then learned to play and sing what he called “black music” –blues and R&*B–from the guy who shined shoes at the UA style shop where Hawkins dad cut hair. That guy, Ralph “Buddy” Hayes was a trumpet player and band leader whose group, I’m told, had a sound and a songbook similar to that of Louis Jordan or Louis Armstrong. They played in Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Eureka Springs and were remarkably successful, especially for a black band working in the Ozarks in the 40s. More than the success they achieved at the time, Buddy and his band represent an unbroken musical chain, our own example of a process of transculturation and sharing that cut across racially unjust legal and social barriers, and helped create a definitive local sound that’s also part of an important historical and cultural process.
Now, there is a memorial to Buddy Hayes in Fayetteville, it’s a little park on the southside, in the neighborhood that’s called either “spout Spring” or “The Holler” or “Tincup” depending on what generation of Fayettevillian you are. the park itself is just about big enough to park a car on, and there’s a small stone marker with a dedication and Buddy’s name on it, and nothing else. it sits in the shadow of the Confederate Cemetery, founded by the Southern Memorial Association in 1872 and maintianed by them til this day. If you want information about that Cemetery, the people in it, the cause they fought for, it’s founding, and more you can look on the internet, you can go to the public library, the Washington county Historical society, and more. If you want information on Buddy Hayes you have to talk to people, or read Ronnie Hawkins autobiography.
History is made up of memory, of what is told and remembered and preserved. for almost 140 years citizens of Fayetteville have proudly maintained a monument to misguided loyalty and racial tyranny. Now I understand that the civil war was about more than slavery, but it was also, very much, about slavery. I know that wasn’t why everyone who fought for the south fought, hell, most of the people in Washington County wealthy enough to own slaves fled to Texas and sat out the war there, but you can’t take slavery out of the equation and have it still make sense, no matter how much better we feel if we do. Anyway, I do love that cemetery aesthetically, no matter how perverse it’s location above the town’s only historically African American neighborhood has been. I’m not protesting it’s existence or preservation, I’m just asking for a little equal time for community, music,and love across racial lines, and for the people who’s stories have been left out of local history and heritage.
Fayetteville was the only city in the Arkansas Ozarks whose black population increased in the years after the civil war, as the black population of the Ozarks moved into or through the city. Most moved down from the hills seeking a better economic life, though black folks in Harrison and Eureka Springs were driven out in violent purges. African American American labor contributed greatly to the rebuilding of the town, which was, by the way, mostly destroyed by Confederate, not Union forces. Between roughly 1900 and the early 1970s, the Spout Spring neighborhood was a community within a community, where people lived and raised families and went to school and contributed to the economic and cultural life of the town. Fayetteville is justly proud to be the second school board in the nation to vote to comply with Brown V. Board in 1954 and integrate it’s secondary schools. We know, as a matter of public record, much about the white administrators who, courageously and honorably took on their own establishment to press for and support these changes, but we know little about the people who walked down the trails that they opened up, or why it took the city until 1965 to integrate the elementary schools, why the Lincoln School building was torn down after neighborhood residents refurbished the building to use as a community center, and why in general, the history of black fayettevillians has never been much of a part of the larger history of the city.
Understanding the music and career of Buddy Hayes, the cultural environment he operated in, his influence on Fayetteville musicians and on the growth of a music scene in Fayetteville that combined traditions maintained by both black and white southerners would help us to understand our history and heritage in a more complex and experiential way. Bringing the history of the part of town where he came from out into the light would give us a fuller and more three-dimensional understanding of the transformations of our region, and help to complicate the media driven image of the Ozarks as a strictly white enclave. It also might expand our definiton of a “historic neigborhood’ so that doesn’t just mean “where rich people had nice houses.” Given all of this (and sorry it took so long!) I’d like to see an expansion of Buddy Hayes park and the establishment of a publicly accessible archive based on material that could be gathered by the fine folks at the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies and the David Pryor Oral History Project at the U of A. Spout Spring has been a (secret) important part of what made Fayetteville culturally different from the rest of the Ozarks for most of the 20th century. let’s remember it.
By Dustin Bartholomew on June 16th, 2009
Nice. Thanks @Urk and @Tony.
By Tony Wappel on June 16th, 2009
I wholeheartedly agree with Urk!! The local musicicians who came out of Fayetteville should be honored more than they have been. I plead ignorance to the music scene but am somewhat aware of the musicians Urk mentions. Do what you can Urk to help preserve and honor its history. Gather information and artifacts, research, write and publish…. It can be a chore, but its worth it in the end.
Even more close to my heart is ALL of our neighborhoods have stories and histories that need to be preserved–not just those neighborhoods with rich folk and nice houses…. There is so much history around here that is being lost not only to the natural influences of time but also wreckless development. I tried to show some of our history in my book Once Upon Dickson and hope to do something similar with Highway 71. We all need to do what we can to help preserve Fayetteville’s history.
By Urk on June 16th, 2009
Tony, the book you wrote is a valuable resource, and I’m very grateful to the extensive work that you put into it. In some ways, what I’d like to add, and what I’ve been working on for awhile and will be working on even after I finish my current book project, is something that fills in the details about the music scene that blossomed on Dickson in the early 70s. I can’t even hardly express how much your book will help with this. Thanks!
By Tony Wappel on June 16th, 2009
Urk,
Thanks for the compliment! I really enjoyed researching and writing it. I intentionally was light on the music scene because it is worth a book of its own. Good luck with it!!
By Urk on June 17th, 2009
thanks Tony. what I’m writing now is a dissertation, so it’s going to be consumed by a certain amount of academic gobbledygook and isn’t exactly the history of the Fayetteville music scene that I want and intend to write.
By Todd Gill on June 17th, 2009
A Fayetteville music history sounds awesome!
By David Orr on June 17th, 2009
Yes, let’s talk history.
How about some commemoration of the Battle of Fayetteville (civil war) and the antebellum homes that once lined College? Not sure how to go about it but the current beautification of that stretch of roadway will not address this. I’d love to see some prominent display that would educate citizens of what’s happened there and what’s been lost over the years to accomodate trucks and auto traffic down the once-grand avenue.
An interpretive gallery or, better yet, a museum would be an excellent addition to the city. Perhaps on the square, or in one of the vacant spaces between the square and COllege? Or on College itself?
There also needs to be prominent commemoration of Spout Springs and the role it played as a water supply for the early town and for the communities that have lived there over the last 150 years.
I’d suggest commemoration of the American Indian history of the area. The growing interest in the Trail of Tears is an obvious starting point that could raise awareness of the early town’s economy as a waypoint along trade routes of Indians as well as white travelers. THere’s little public knowledge of the status of NW Arkansas as the first CHerokee Reservation and destination point for Trail of Tears exiles from the southern Appalachian homelands. A “teachable moment” for the racist, anti-Indian past of the United States.
Finally, attention should be paid to the natural history of the area. The liquidation of the old-growth forests across Washington County and Madison County was facilitated by the construction of the railroad across the BOston Mtns. and northwards. What species of wildlife and plant life existed in those days (e.g., buffalo, elk, wolves, beaver, mtn. lions…) that are extinct or nearly so today despite relative abundance in the past. How have settlement patterns and economic activities affected the region’s ecosystems? The White River’s role as a migratory corridor for animals and humans alike, and the changes brought about by the construction of Beaver Lake and other, smaller structures and development.
These are some ideas I hope the resources group will consider.
David Orr
By Urk on June 17th, 2009
David, i love those ideas. Getting commemorative groups to adress real teachable moments and controversies, as opposed to “celebrations of the past” is going to be difficult, but I think it’s important.
By Julie McQuade on June 17th, 2009
Dustin, thanks for posting the update about the Historic and Heritage Resources Group. All of the FFEAC Groups have started working and want more people to get involved. There is no end to the ideas and wonderful programs that can come from these groups – as demonstrated by the comments above. The momentum continues and there are numerous opportunities for people to get involved in whatever they are passionate about. If they are unsure about what group to participate in, they can call me and I’ll help connect them. Thanks again.
By kirby sanders on June 23rd, 2009
Try http:// http://www.heritagetrailpartners.com (Heritage Trail Partners).
We have been foundational in the passage of the Arkansas Heritage Trails system statewide and the National Park Service additions of NWA Trail of Tears, Civil War and Butterfield routes to the National Trails system.
Re-create the wheel if you like — but the wheel has already been invented. Please work with us. You’d be surpirsed at how much of this research has already been done.
-kirby-