Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Historic Properties Named

Cathy Slater, l-r, director of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, meets with Meeks Etchieson and Wendy Richter after Rose Hill Cemetery at Arkadelphia was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, the country's official list of historically significant properties. The board also listed the ca. 1925 Hoo-Hoo theater on East First Street at Gurdon (above) on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places.

The State Review Board of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program (AHPP), an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, nominated 17 properties from 15 Arkansas counties, including the Rose Hill Cemetery at Arkadelphia, to the national Register of Historic Places when it met September 3, AHPP director Cathy Slater announced recently.

The board also listed the Hoo-Hoo Theater at Gurdon on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places.

"Built in 1925 and remodeled in 1940, the Hoo-Hoo Theater is singificant as the best example of an architect-designed Art Deco-style building in Gurdon," the Arkansas Register nomination says.

"The advanced state of deterioration and the loss of some historic features excludes the theater from being eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places at this time."

Rose Hill Cemetery, located on the south side of Main Street at Arkadelphia, covers about one city block and contains more than 2,220 burials, more than 60 percent of which date from before 1945.

"Rose Hill Cemetery is and has been the principal burial place for the white population of the city of Arkadelphia," according to the National Register nomination.

"The Cemetery was known as Maddox Cemetery when it was first organized in May of 1876. It is located on land donated by the Maddox family, a prominent family in the early history of Arkadelphia," according to the nomination. "The cemetery's name was changed to Rose Hill in 1880."