Listing on registry an honor to attain

The T.H. Dearing House in Newark was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and added to the register in 1976. It shares that honor with 2,550 other places of all kinds in the state, including Titan II ICBM launch complex 374-7 in Van Buren County.

ICBM: Intercontinental ballistic missile. Instruments of the Cold War doctrine of MAD — mutually assured destruction.

The missile site, the Dearing House and all the other places share characteristics that made them eligible for inclusion on the register, one of which is an association with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of history. Seven more places in Arkansas were added this year.

Dianna Kirk, a historian at the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, in 1975 wrote and submitted to the U.S. Department of the Interior for approval the Dearing House nomination.

The house, Kirk wrote, was built circa 1890 as a one-story frame house in Akron. In 1901 it was moved about five miles to its location in Newark. A second story was added circa 1914. The moving of the house “symbolizes the general movement from the river ports to railroad depots which occurred often in late 19th-century Arkansas.”

Thomas Hindman Dearing was a farmer active in Independence County politics. From 1894 to 1898 he was circuit clerk in the county, and in 1911 he was sergeant-at-arms for the 38th General Assembly. “The house he bought for his eight children is now owned by his youngest daughter, Mrs. Lena Dearing Shipman,” Kirk wrote.

Terry Shipman, Lena Shipman’s son, lives in the house now and is restoring it.

Brian Driscoll, a technical assistance coordinator for the Department of Arkansas Heritage, has consulted with Shipman and many others on the proper way to restore a site on the national register. The listing is “essentially honorific,” he said, and comes with no restrictions.

Driscoll’s advice to would-be restorers is, in part, something simple: “Don’t damage what you’re trying to restore.”

For instance, “don’t sandblast old brick. Modern masonry is much harder, and older brick sometimes is very soft.”

Save as much of the original material as possible during restoration, Driscoll said. Repair rather than replace.

People who own historic structures may be eligible for state or federal tax credits, he said, or may be eligible for grants.

“We provide information to people so they can avoid mistakes someone will regret later,” he said.

“You get on the Internet, there’s all kinds of things there — and not everyone knows what they’re talking about.”

— Frank Fellone