Mountain Home Commercial Historic District - Mountain Home, Arkansas - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

This historic district is centered on the Baxter County Courthouse located at 1 S 7th.

Baxter County is located in the Ozark Mountain range of north-central Arkansas. The county contains approximately 554 square miles and is bounded on the north by Missouri, on the south by Stone County, on the east by Fulton County, and on the west by Searcy County. The county seat of Baxter County is Mountain Home, which is located near the center of the county. Situated on a plateau in the Ozark Mountain, Mountain Home has an elevation of 820 feet. The city covers ten acres with a population over 11,000 in 2000.

The first permanent white settler in the area that was to become Mountain Home was around 1810. A post office was established in 1857 and named Mountain Home. The “Male and Female Academy” opened in Mountain Home in 1853, but was burned during the Civil War along with most of the houses and businesses in town. Mountain Home and the Male and Female Academy were rebuilt after the war with the addition of several new businesses. Mountain Home was incorporated as a town in 1888. With its central location and strong educational background, Mountain Home became the county seat of Baxter County when it formed in 1873. The establishment of a college in 1893 further solidified the town as an educational center. Baxter County business was first conducted in a store at the edge of town in 1873, then in a former boarding house on Main Street. In 1882, the first official courthouse building was constructed on land donated by local businessman that had unofficially been used as the town square. A second courthouse was constructed on the town square in 1890. A third story was added in 1910. Construction of the current courthouse building by the WPA began in 1941 after the fire-damaged 1890 courthouse was razed.

A description of Mountain Home in 1879 indicated that there were a number of frame store buildings facing the square on all sides. A full array of businesses and services were offered in downtown Mountain Home including general mercantile store, shoe store, blacksmith shop, furniture and cabinet shop, attorney, doctor’s office, drug store, and restaurant. All of the buildings from this period were frame and none remain, having all been replaced with masonry structures.

From the 1850s to the turn of the century, Mountain Home received all of its goods from riverboats travelling up the White River. In 1903 a railroad line was constructed through the small town of Cotter, nine miles southwest of Mountain Home, providing the means to transport goods. Mountain Home grew slowly, but steadily during the first decades of the twentieth century.

The years of the Great Depression were particularly hard on Baxter County which suffered a devastating drought in 1930 and again in 1931, causing many people to lose their farms and move away in search of work. The federal programs of the 1930s put locals to work building bridges and a new county courthouse. In 1941 construction of the Norfork and Bull Shoals dams on the White River was begun. The federally-funded project was to provide flood control and hydroelectric power. Norfork Dam was completed in 1944 and Bull Shoals Dam in 1951. Mountain Home greatly benefitted during the construction period, being located mid way between the two projects. The town boomed in the 1940s with workers needing goods and services and places of residence. The creation of Norfork and Bull Shoals Lakes transformed the area into a tourist and recreational region beginning the late 1940s. The Mountain Home area has become most well known as a vacation resort and retirement community.

The Mountain Home Commercial Historic District contains 56 buildings in the historic commercial center of the city. The majority of the buildings in the district face the courthouse square on E. 6th Street on the north, E. 7th Street on the south, and S. Baker Street on the east. S. Main Street (U.S. Highway 62) runs through the city on the west side of the courthouse square. Other buildings in the district are located in the blocks adjacent to the courthouse square. All but two of the resources are located east of S. Main Street.

- National Register Application

The Mountain Home Commercial Historic District encompasses the historic central business district of Mountain Home, Arkansas, the county seat of Baxter County. The district is centered on the Baxter County Courthouse, and is bounded on the north by East 5th Street, the south by East 9th Street, the east by South Street, and the west by South Hickory Street. Most of the buildings in this area are commercial structures, one or two stories in height, of masonry construction. They are generally vernacular in style, and most were built in one of two periods: between about 1900 and 1920, after the arrival of the railroad, and in the 1950s, when the city experienced another major period of growth. The oldest building is the 1892 Baker Building at 601-603 Baker Street.

The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.

- Wikipedia Entry

Street address: Roughly bounded on the north by E. 5th Street, E. 9th Street on the south, South Street on the East, and Hickory Street on the west Mountain Home, AR USA 72653 County / Borough / Parish: Baxter Year listed: 2010 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1950-1974, 1925-1949, 1900-1924, 1875-1899 Historic function: Commerce/Trade, Government, Recreation And Culture, Religion Current function: Commerce/Trade, Government, Recreation And Culture Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/27/2018 TerraViators visited it