You are invited to Pea Ridge Museum
Town, schools have interesting history
We want to invite everyone to make a spring, summer or fall visit to our Pea Ridge Historical Society Museum. Beginning now, in March, and continuing through November, the museum will be regularly open and staffed by volunteers on Saturday afternoons, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Also, visits on other days and at other times may be arranged by appointment. To make an appointment, call Mary Durand (479-5865574), Jerry Nichols (479621-1621) or Marcia Cothran (479-426-2191).
Many of our visitors are individuals and families; and we also welcome visits by groups such as Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, church groups, school class groups and so on.
The museum is located at 1451 N. Curtis Ave., near the north end of North Curtis Avenue in downtown Pea Ridge. The museum is sponsored and operated by the Pea Ridge Historical Society. The Historical Society was organized in October of 2003, having been inspired by such local historians as Mrs. Billie Jines, the newspaper lady; Joe Pitts, Martha Ruth Hall and other individuals interested in the local history of Pea Ridge as a developing town and community. Early meetings of the Historical Society were held in the High School Media Center and in the downtown Extension Homemakers Club building (formerly Mt. Vernon Masonic Lodge Building). Eventually, after extensive renovations were done to the E.H. Building by the City of Pea Ridge and a long-term building lease was arranged with the Historical Society, the museum was opened in March of 2009. In 2011, after arranging a lease with the Pea Ridge Schools, the former S.E.E.K. Building (former school lunchroom) on the downtown school campus became the headquarters of the Historical Society and became the Pea Ridge School Heritage Building. Both buildings currently serve as museum locations, with the Heritage Building focusing on local school history displays (1874 to present).
The town of Pea Ridge, Ark., has historically taken its birthday to be Aug. 5, 1850, when its first U.S. Post Office was opened in the developing village. With the designation of Oklahoma as Indian territory and the relocation of a number of native American tribes to that area, white settlement in the Pea Ridge area began during the 1830s. Apparently the earliest Pea Ridge homes were constructed near a spring of water located on the street known today as Greene Street.
Soon, houses and stores were opening on the flat ground east of and above the spring. These were the beginnings of old downtown Pea Ridge, centered on the intersection of a main street east and west (now called Pickens Street) and the road leading south (now called Curtis Avenue).
Early businesses were grocery and feed stores, general merchandise stores, a produce store, blacksmith shops, a barrel and stave factory, a furniture store, livery stable and a drug store and hotel. The first enduring school in Pea Ridge was constructed by Professor John R. Roberts and the Pea Ridge Academy in 1880. The Academy actually opened in 1874 in the Lodge Building at Buttram’s Chapel. By the mid-1880s the Academy developed into a prestigious educational institution, offering courses from the elementary and high school level through college-level instruction. Public schools in the area began opening about 1884.
The Pea Ridge Museum building has an interesting history in itself. Constructed in 1948 as a Lodge Hall and community building by the Mt. Vernon Masonic Lodge, the two-story structure typified the multi-use buildings of the Masonic Lodges of the late 1800s, with the Lodge Hall itself in the upper story, and with the downstairs available for other community gatherings. The Mt. Vernon Lodge, (named after the township in which Pea Ridge is located), had three earlier homes — first in Leetown, before the Civil War, then at Buttram’s Chapel (now Buttram’s Chapel Cemetery), then in the pre1948 Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church Building at the corner of today’s McIntosh and Davis Streets. The upper story floor of the Museum Building is supported by large beams salvaged from the old Presbyterian Church building when the new church was built in 1947-1948. Some materials, such as windows, were also salvaged from the former Camp Crowder barracks, when Neosho’s old World War I Army Air Corp Training Base was being dismantled.
The School Heritage Building was constructed initially to serve as the school’s vocational agriculture classroom and shop. A large west door allowed farm wagons to be brought into the building for repairs and improvements. In 1941, a kitchen was added to the building, and the school began serving “hot lunches” to students. The building served as the school’s “hot lunch room” until 1964, when the cafeteria in the new Pea Ridge Elementary School took over the school meal function.
Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge and can be contacted by email at joe369@centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.