“We look forward to working with property owners and local advocates to rehabilitate these significant historic resources and capitalize on their unique value as community assets,” said Rachel Patton, executive director of Preserve Arkansas.

The Most Endangered Places Program began in 1999 to raise awareness of historically and architecturally significant properties facing threats such as demolition, deterioration, and insensitive development. Preserve Arkansas solicited nominations from individuals and organizations throughout the state, and a selection committee of preservation professionals, architects, historians, and Preserve Arkansas members chose properties based on their level of significance, severity of the threat, and level of local support. The list is updated each year to generate discussions and support for saving the places that matter to Arkansans.

Featured Five: The 2024 List of Arkansas’s Most Endangered Places –

Arkansas Civil Air Patrol Headquarters, Little Rock (Pulaski County). Formerly the home of the 123rd Intelligence Squadron and the Arkansas Air National Guard Armory, this 1953 building is one of the few remaining military-era structures at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field, the master plan of which indicates its possible future removal.

Bush House, Little Rock (Pulaski County). The 1919 house at the edge of Little Rock’s Paul Laurence Dunbar School Neighborhood Historic District was individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and is among several area residences that are demonstrably important in Little Rock’s and Arkansas’s African American history. It was placed on the City of Little Rock’s Unsafe and Vacant List last year.

Cleburne Hotel, Helena-West Helena (Phillips County). The 1905 building in the Cherry Street Historic District was once a bustling “European Plan” hotel in thriving downtown Helena. It has been vacant for decades, but there is interest in rehabilitation for mixed use purposes.

R. A. Pickens, II, House, Pickens (Desha County). This 1940s Colonial Revival-style house is the focal point of the historic Pickens Plantation, which remains in the Pickens family today, operating as a farm. Deferred maintenance has taken its toll on the house, and urgent action is needed to save and repurpose it.

St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, Arkansas City (Desha County). The one-room, Gothic Revival-style church was built in Arkansas City’s heyday, before the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 altered its landscape and population. The 1940s addition of a former barracks from the nearby Rohwer Japanese-American Relocation Center adds to the church’s rich history, making the deteriorating building even more significant.

Photos and additional information about 2024’s Most Endangered Places are available at PreserveArkansas.org.  

Preserve Arkansas is the statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to building stronger communities by reconnecting Arkansans to our heritage and empowering people to save and rehabilitate historic places. For more information about Preserve Arkansas, please contact Rachel Patton at 501-372-4757, [email protected], or visit www.PreserveArkansas.org.