GARFIELD -- Celebrating history and the perseverance of the natives of the area, several area residents formed the Glade Community Historical Society and have filled the Glade Museum with implements of the past. An open house is slated from 3-5 p.m. Sunday, July 28, in the museum and on the grounds.
Ruth Billingsley, Pat Heck, Dorothy Williams and Judi Walter have been working diligently to prepare the museum for the open house.
Open House
Glade Museum
3-5 p.m. Sunday, July 28
20659 Slate Gap Rd.
Garfield
The building now housing the museum served as both post office and mercantile store from about 1890 to 1945, Heck said, adding that after 1945, there was neither store nor post office in Glade. In 1945 when the post office began rural mail delivery, the post office was closed. The refurbished post office is displayed in honor of Lysenby Orven and Ona Fine Williams, parents of Pat Heck and Stanley Williams for rescuing the old Glade Post Office.
The building nearly faced destruction when White River was dammed to create Beaver Lake but was purchased by Liss Williams and moved to higher ground. For nearly 50 years, it sat in a field off Shrader Road near Pea Ridge. In 2014, it was returned to the area that was once the Glade Community off Coal Gap Road.
The stones which once formed the foundation for the building were visible in 2013, when the lake was low. They were recovered and used to form the foundation once again.
Larry Hanner, though not a native, moved to the area in the late 1940s and attended school at Coal Gap School for the seventh and eighth grades. He said the family moved from Iowa because his grandfather, a railroad engineer, began having heart problems and needed the more southern climate.
"I was the only one in my class," he said.
Bob and Ruth Billingsley, moved to northwest Arkansas 15 years ago from Norman, Okla. The old school building and teacher's cottage are both on their land.
"My family said to tear it down," Ruth said, recalling her determination to save the old cottage. "We jokingly refer to it as the money pit."
The cottage is now restored and a lovely guest cottage with an additional room on the back. Billingsley said visiting missionaries have used it as a peaceful place for respite.
Judi Walter is from Maine. She moved to northwest Arkansas about 13 years ago and said she had been a member of historical societies in northern Maine. Contrasting the age of buildings on the east coast with historical structures in northwest Arkansas, Walter said the house in which she lived in Maine was 250 years old.
"We're glad she likes U.S. history," Pat Heck said of Walter, expressing gratitude for her involvement in the society.
"According to history, we're not exactly sure, but there were supposedly three post offices here," Heck said, explaining that the post office moved back and forth across the White River from Glade to LaRue. "So, the actual history is uncertain from 1858 to 1866 ... There were several name changes and location changes until 1903, then it settled near where I grew up."
She said that historical accounts indicate that the first post office was operated by Able Jennings who also had property in the area. There was a ferry there, too, called Jennings Ferry, which transported people across the White River. That road led into Rogers.
About a half mile from the Glade Post Office sat Coal Gap School providing instruction for students in first through eighth grades.
"No one had enough money to move to town and go to high school," Heck recalled.
One of those students, Cleva Douglas, was born in the Glade Community in 1907. She remembered attending Coal Gap School where she said she acquired the love of reading. Mrs. Douglas contributed much to the history of the school. In 2013, Cleva Williams Douglas celebrated her 106th birthday. She died Aug. 29, 2014, 13 weeks before her 107th birthday.
All board members agreed, they have been and will continue to collect the oral history and welcome anyone from the area to tell them their stories.
"We believe in history and the preservation of it and want to save it for future generations so they will have some idea of what life was like before Beaver Lake so young people can know everything wasn't air conditioned and it was a real treat to get a piece of candy," Heck said.
"I'd like to see it look as near as it can to when it was functioning -- add feed bags, put letters in there and label those of some of the people who lived around here," Reynolds said. "I don't think young people have any idea. This building didn't ever have electricity."
"I remember candy being there in a glass counter," Heck said, reminiscing about the mercantile in the 1940s. "Life before screens did exist."
"Yes, the Star Route came through in '47 or '48," Hanner said of rural mail delivery.
A Coal Gap School reunion is still held, but at Garfield now.
"We had 150 the first year," Heck said. "Many of them are now deceased."
The public is invited to the open house.
•••
This is the second article in a two-part series about the Glade Community Post Office and Mercantile.
Community on 07/24/2019