This is a large mural of Scott Joplin playing an upright piano with a potted palm in the corner. The mural is of an unknown paint on stucco. The artist is Stanley James Herd and the mural was painted in 1994. Information on why Scott Joplin in depicted in Sedalia, Mo. (Encyclopedia of Arkansas) (
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"Known as the “King of Ragtime,” Scott Joplin composed more than forty ragtime piano pieces, including “Maple Leaf Rag” (which sold more than a million copies) and “The Entertainer” (which was used in the 1973 film The Sting). He spent his formative years in Texarkana (Miller County), and his major opera, Treemonisha, is set in the plantation area of Rondo (Lafayette County) north of Texarkana.
Scott Joplin was born on November 24, 1867 or 1868, near Marshall, Texas. His father, Giles, was a former slave, and his mother, Florence, was a freed woman from Kentucky. The family moved to Texarkana early in Joplin’s life so that his father could obtain work on the railroad. Joplin showed an early interest in the piano, and he practiced in the homes where his mother did domestic work. His teachers included Mag Washington, John C. Johnson, and Julius Weiss, a German immigrant who taught him piano technique and exposed him to the European opera music that influenced his later compositions.
Joplin arrived in Sedalia, Missouri, in 1894 and played in the Williams Brothers Maple Leaf Club; his famous “Maple Leaf Rag” (1899) took on the name of that club. His moniker, “The Entertainer,” printed on the club business card, also became the name of one of his famous works. He took a music theory course at George R. Smith College in Sedalia around 1896 to learn how to notate the complicated rhythms of piano ragtime. This skill enabled his music to reach a wider audience through publication.
In 1899, John Stark, an agent for the Mason and Hamlin piano company, contracted with Joplin to publish “Maple Leaf Rag” for fifty dollars, plus royalties. Through nationwide sales at F. W. Woolworth stores, the song sold more than a million copies. This single publication freed Joplin from performing in honky-tonk saloons and enabled him to teach and compose."
From the National Register application on the building the mural is painted:
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"205 South Ohio Avenue, (vacant), c. 1880, Romanesque Revival influence.
Rectangular plan, two stories, brick walls, shed roof with tile coping, stone trim. The storefront has been altered with a deeply recessed center entry with full-height 1-light sash. Flanking raised display sash overhang the permastone covered bulkhead. Maroon enamel panels sheath the end piers and the storefront transom area above a retracted canvas awning. The second story has a large center round arch three-part window flanked by lower 1/1 sash. A rock-faced stone round arch surmounts the center window group; stone imposts continue as stone lintels for the flanking sash. Continuous stone sill. Triple inset rounded brick clustered columns with egg-and-dart molded caps flank the 1/1 sash below the lintels. An elaborate crenelated parapet tops the building between corbelled projecting end piers with egg-and-dart molded bases and stone caps. A center reeded stringcourse is below a frieze with decorative brick patera panels set between brick drops. Shallow corbelled dentils are below the molded brick cornice. The crenelated parapet steps up in the center between taller piers; both the piers and crenels are stone capped. The north elevation has been parged. A parking lot is to the north and 207 S. Ohio is adjacent to this building."