Stamps Store - Osage, Arkansas - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

It was probably at the end of Osage's days as a lawless town that Willie and Millie Sneed erected their store building. The ground floor of the store functioned then just as it did until only about a year ago: as a grocery, dry goods store and a bank (the extent of the early twentieth century banking activities is not known, but it seems likely that given the distance to established banks and the difficulty in getting there, local Osage residents came to the store for small loans, to deposit valuables and cash into the safe, and to manage other lines of credit). It also served as the official Osage post office until the 1960's when the mail delivery responsibilities were transferred to Green Forest, The second floor was used for boarding and the third floor was used as a meeting hall until the 1950's or 1960's, when the upstairs served as storage space only.

The Stamps Store is a two-and-one-half story, stone masonry commercial building designed in a vernacular interpretation of the Romanesque Revival style. It features a rectangular plan with a large, open retail/bank/post office space occupying the entire first floor, apartments occupying the second floor and a meeting hall in the upper half-story. A single brick chimney rises through the gable peak near the center of the building. The stone foundation and walls are covered by a corrugated metal gable roof.

The southern or front elevation features a two-story, shed roof wood porch and balcony attached to the stone facade of the structure itself. Both the first and second story are symmetrically arranged. The first floor is divided into three evenly-spaced arched openings and entered via the central opening with a double-leaf entry set beneath a fixed glass transom. The flanking arched windows are filled with large, fixed glass panes and simply panelled wood bulkheads below. A raised stone landing supports the wood porch. The second story is fenestrated by two rectangular, four-over-four wood sash windows flanking a central doorway which accesses the balcony. The balcony itself consists of six simple wood posts supporting the shed roof with a connecting balustrade composed of square wood posts. It is supported by four larger wood posts that rest upon the stone landing below. The upper half-story is lighted by a central one-over-one wood sash window set into a weatherboarded pediment.

The eastern and western elevations are similar. The eastern elevation is four bays in length. The first floor is blank, while the second story is lighted with three arched window openings filled with four-over-four wood sash windows to the north and is accessed via a wood single-leaf entry to the south (the wood staircase has since been removed, though its stone foundation remains). The western elevation is five bays in length and composed of five evenly-spaced arched openings, each filled with four-over-four wood sash windows. It is also blank on the first floor.

The northern or rear elevation is completely symmetrical, with a central arched entrance on the first floor separating two four-over-four wood sash wood windows set into arched openings. The second floor is lighted with two smaller arched openings, also filled with four-over-four wood sash windows. The half-story above is lighted with a central window opening (now covered) set into a weatherboarded pediment. A slightly projecting wood box cornice finishes the elevation.

Exterior details of note are primarily limited to the massive mud and segmental stone arches throughout. While those on the front of the building are more finished than those found elsewhere, all rely upon a sophisticated setting of the stone voussoirs to support the weight of the wall and roof above. The rough, cut fieldstone walls lends handsome, heavily textured appearance to the large fields of uninterrupted wall surface and provide the only other significant ornament.