Historical facts and stories from Glade

GLADE — Glade’s first residents made their own soap.

From 1857 till the early 1900s, most soap-making probably occurred at home in Glade. Records don’t indicate when soap was discovered, but according to The History of Soap site, it states that Phoenicians used it around 600 B.C. The Romans made soap a luxury item until the late 18th century. The rich could afford it, and as methods of soap making improved, soap use became inexpensive, and attitudes toward cleanliness changed, making soap a big industry. It was good to be clean.

The adventure of moving the old Glade Post Office/ store continues. The building is more than a century old, and the money to move the building has been approved. The move was disrupted from moving by spring rains that softened the earth and the U.S. Highway 62 widening project which continued at a fast pace. Then, members of the Glade Historical Society waited for the mover to receive approval to begin the move down Gann Ridge Road or U.S. Highway 62 to Arkansas Highway 127 to Slate Gap Road and its return to Glade.

Simon Lycurgus “Dick” McGinnis was Glade’s first postmaster in 1903. The McGinnis family had moved from Tennessee to eastern Benton County into the Coal Gap community before 1870. He married Emma Hegwood and they raised their family (Alva, Golda, Everett and Sylvia) at Glade. Raymond Nichols was the last Glade postmaster and the store closed in 1945. The building was moved to Pea Ridge by Liss Williams when he left Glade because of Beaver Lake. Once the building was returned, many hours of hard work were required to restore the Post Office.

Garfield’s first school was built in 1887 or 1888 according to Goodspeed’s “1889 History of Northwest Arkansas.” School was conducted on the first floor and Masonic Lodge meetings were held on the second floor. Several smaller schools in the area dissolved and were annexed to Garfield from 1920 through the 1940s. The cast iron bell in front of the school was cast by the C.S. Bell Co. of Tiffin, Ohio, and it was shipped by rail, according to “The History of Garfield Arkansas, 1874-1996” by Wanda Mahurin.

••• Editor’s note: Information is from the Glade Historical Society newsletter.

Photographs submitted In 2014, the Glade Post Office building was settled on land off Arkansas Highway 127 not far from where it originally sat when it served the community.

One of the first steps taken in saving the old building was putting on a new roof.

Stanley Williams’ father Liss Williams moved the Glade Post Office to save it from the flood waters of Beaver Lake. It sat on Williams’ land near Pea Ridge for the next four decades before being returned to the rural area off Ark. Hwy. 127 in 2014....

Clora Nichols, Anita Frevert, Pat Heck and Cleva Douglas were instrumental in gathering information for the history of the Glade Post Office and mercantile store.