Rebuilding after loss
Places and buildings often find a way into the hearts of individuals and into an entire community.
What is just an inanimate object evokes very real feelings in people. Even a school building, where students spend countless hours bored and counting every minute before they get out will often become find their school a place of fond memories.
Sometimes when we are faced with loss, we realize how special a place can be.
Students and staff at South Arkansas Community College realized that with a recent fire that severely damaged its historic Administration Building.
On Thursday, April 12, the college announced at a fundraising dinner that the Administration Building would be named in honor of Charlie Thomas, a respected local businessman and longtime trustee and benefactor of the college. Late the next night, storms rolled into the area. Lightning struck the roof, sparking a fire.
The building is the heart of the college campus in the heart of the community. The site of the building has been in continuous use for education since 1854 when early city leaders established a girl’s school on the site. In 1905, city leaders built the three-story brick building as the city’s high school, in a time when few children even attended high school. The impressive edifice was built at a cost of $40,000. The first graduating class in 1905 included only five students. Indoor plumbing and electricity were only added in 1911.
Here, students learned about the world around them, dreamt of the future, and fell in love for the first time. Dreaming greater dreams, education leaders established El Dorado Junior College inside the building in 1928. Administrators doubled as teachers and teachers doubled as librarians, providing as many services as possible to help students move on to universities. With World War II, young men rushed to enlist, draining the small college and forcing it to close in 1942. But the community remembered the college, often referring to the three-story edifice as the Junior College Building.
The building became part of the high school again until the school moved in 1964. Afterward, it served as Rogers Junior High. In 1976, the school district leased the building to the new El Dorado Branch of Southern State College, and its life as a college began anew. Professors and vice-presidents now had offices in rooms where they once attended their own high school classes years before. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and the site became South Arkansas Community College in 1992. In 2002, a $1 million renovation was completed through grants and donations from the community that included antique furniture and decades-old portraits from the former Junior College. A new generation was now enjoying the building as they built their own futures.
There were no injuries, but the damage was done. The storms raged, but the fires would not wait. The El Dorado Fire Department and the Lawson Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene quickly. Because of the antique construction of the building, firefighters had to punch through layers of Styrofoam insulation to be able to reach the fire, making matters even more difficult. As one set of flames died, a new fire erupted at the other end of the attic. As the fire was at its worst, firefighters were forced to stop twice and seek shelter as tornado sirens blared and the twisters raged across the county. The bravery and dedication of men and women willing to fight a fire during a tornado can never be questioned.
In 1955, Elvis Presley had come to El Dorado to give a performance in the auditorium building that had been next door. It was still early in his career and early in the age of rock. After Elvis left the building, he happened to wander over to the Junior College Building. On the third floor, he entered an attic stairwell where students had left their signatures on the walls for years (and would do so for years afterward). Elvis signed the wall as well. The story had become half-myth and half-legend for years and there were fears the autograph was lost. As it turned out, the autograph survived.
Throughout Saturday morning, the community watched and prayed. The building could not be lost, they prayed. It must not be lost. The basement suddenly created its own problem. Decades before, students would shovel coal into the furnaces stored there to keep the building warm. Students, teachers, and administrators often sought refuge in the basement during the kinds of severe storms and tornadoes that Union County faced that night. But as water was sprayed on the fire, gravity did the rest. Water sank into the basement and filled it to the top of its eight-foot ceilings. Teams spent hours well into Saturday evening pumping it out.
On Saturday morning, smoke poured out of the roof and the smell of burnt wood filled the air. Much of the attic floor had collapsed onto the third floor, but the fire damage was contained. El Dorado Fire Chief Chad Mosby estimated that 6,000 gallons per minute were used on the fire. By the time the fire was entirely extinguished that afternoon, perhaps two million gallons were used. This is equal to about half the amount of water the entire city of El Dorado uses in a typical day.
The SouthArk staff returned in full on the following Monday morning to examine what had been lost. Employees were shaken but thankful it was not any worse. Certainly, there had been other people in other storms who had lost so much more. There was no loss of life, and no disruption of classes occurred. The life of the college went on.
Most of the damage was from the immense amounts of water which ran down the walls and flooded offices, carrying ash and debris into the streets. Engineers assessing the damage have concluded that the building can be repaired in perhaps 12-18 months. The damp, the mold, and the rot become the biggest challenge. Staff mourned the loss of personal mementos and quickly settled into other parts of campus, counting the days to when the building would be reopened, grander than ever.
It is the people and the memories of times together that make buildings special. The people of El Dorado and South Arkansas Community College will rebuild and recover from this disaster. As people come together in a crisis, they become a family instead of just coworkers and make a special place worth saving.