Stamps Store - Osage, AR - History Museums on Waymarking.com

---

This is a fascinating museum to take in. Although it is currently in use as a commercial enterprise, the Osage Clayworks, it is also maintained as a museum to display artifacts going back to the early 20th century. It has served many functions over the years including bank and post office as well as general store. It's unique architecture and historic functions allowed it to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

---

---

From Arkansas Historic Preservation Society:

The Stamps Store is remarkable by virtue of the craftsmanship displayed in its construction as evidenced in both its use of load-bearing fieldstone construction in a building of this size and the unique vernacular details of its interior structural design. The integrity of its early twentieth century interior retail space also renders it significant.

The Stamps Store, constructed 1899-1902 by the Bailey family of Alpena (the same stonemasons responsible for the well-known stone commercial buildings in that community), was built by Willie and Millie Sneed, the descendants of long-time settlers in the Osage area. They operated the building as a store until 1912, when it was purchased by Mr. E.K. (Kinner) Stamps for $2,500. The Stamps family owned the store until 1990, when it was purchased from the Frank Stamps estate by Newton Lale and his wife, Amy McGehee.

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 arrange 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. . . .

A full two-and-one-half stories in height, the walls are load-bearing masonry and continue to the top of the second floor, where they carry the rafters that support the roof deck. The material is local fieldstone, cut into rough-faced rectangular units that not only have maintained their structural integrity but that also lend a rich, rustic texture to the exterior wall surfaces of the building. Overall, its exterior alone renders it a vernacular masterpiece unlike anything in the area.

Its interior construction is noteworthy also. The wood columns and capitals that carry the center beam down the ceiling of the first floor retail space are aesthetically simple but structurally elegant. The small square capital at the top of the column supports a larger, spreading wood capital (that somewhat resembles the late Roman/early Christian era western architectural feature known as an "impost block") with rounded outside corners that make it resemble a section of a full-round capital. This unique structural sensibility is carried to the second floor also, where the sections that together compose the center beam are joined with a Z-shaped cut at the end of each piece so that the pieces fit together. However, to insure that the load does not cause these pieces to slide along the diagonal cut, a square block is inserted in a square cut placed in the center of the Z-shaped cut, with half of the cut to accommodate the square piece coming out of both beam sections. The result is an elegant and highly unusual solution to the problem of joining long, wood load-beating members in such a way as to not compromise the structural integrity of each piece at the joint.

The Stamps Store is significant by virtue of its handsome, vernacular stone appearance with its Romanesque Revival influences, and by virtue of the craftsmanship exhibited in the unusual structural techniques and features, the success of which is seen in the enduring structural soundness of the building itself. It is one of the most striking and unusual commercial buildings in the state.

Theme: Local artifacts Street Address: 22 CR 996 Alpena AR 72611 Food Court: no Gift Shop: yes Hours of Operation: not posted Cost: 0.00 (listed in local currency) Museum Size: Small Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]

Visit Instructions:
In order to log this waymark in this category, you must be able to provide proof of your visit. Please post a picture of yourself or your GPSr in front some identifiable feature or point of interest either in the museum, or on the museum grounds.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.