Fire again damages historic home
A historic home at 134 Gulpha St. that was renovated after burning in May 2017 caught fire again on Sunday, causing damage to a nearby residence.
The Hot Springs Fire Department was called to the residence shortly before 3 p. m. Sunday. Flames were visible through the roof as firefighters arrived.
The residence had previously burned on May 6, 2017, and had since been rebuilt. Shift Commander Gary Hawthorn said the fire began at 134 Gulpha St. and the flames came through the windows, partially damaging the next-door building at 138 Gulpha.
No one was inside the house at the time of the fire.
Local artist Longhua Xu said
he could smell the smoke from inside a property he recently purchased and ran outside.
“I had bought this building here,” he said, pointing to a nearby house on Pleasant Street, “and I was doing work inside when I smelled something. I came outside and saw the smoke and the house was on fire. I could smell the smoke inside not long after the fire must have started.”
On May 6, 2017, the house at 134 Gulpha St. was engulfed in fire and initially thought to be a loss, but the owner, who preferred not to be identified, immediately began efforts to rebuild and save the house, which was built in 1930, Cheryl Batts, CEO and founder of People Helping Others Excel by Example, or P.H.O.E.B.E., told The Sentinel-Record in December.
The earlier fire at the house, which is in the middle of the Pleasant Street National Historic District, resulted in the discovery of a treasure trove of historic items that a local preservation group is working to restore.
A worker walking through the house on the first floor “where the water had soaked through” stepped on a weak spot and “went down through the floor,” Batts told the newspaper in December.
Under the floor, there was a storage area and the worker found a vintage trunk there and pulled it out.
The trunk contained books, photo albums, loose photos, documents, scrapbooks, postcards, and letters, including a collection of letters sent by Sgt. Irvin Smith to his father, Sterling M. Smith Sr., a former resident of the house, while the son was serving in World War II. The letters detail some of the activities of Company D, 364th Engineers, during the war.
Other items included a scrapbook of clippings pasted in a 1937 Life magazine tracing the German invasions, she said. There were also menus from the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa where the elder Smith had worked in the 1930s, a sales receipt from Lauray’s for “a watch someone bought,” and even an empty gun holster. Among the numerous photos were some of John Lee Webb, first president of the National Baptist Laymen.