PGTelco Officials, Citizens Reflect On 1950s Phone Booth

PRAIRIE GROVE — The way of a nation’s thinking about how citizens treasure the past is changing, said Ralph S. Wilcox, national register and survey coordinator for the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.

Wilcox spoke Saturday as the Washington County Historical Society hosted one of its 2016 Lecture Series events at the Prai- rie Grove Christian Church. The topic was the 1950s Airlite Telephone Booth and its inclusion in the National and Historic Register.

But Wilcox was not the only speaker to note that individual thinking about the past and the iconic free- standing telephone booth has changed.

The Prairie Grove Airlight Outdoor Telephone Booth is a telephone booth installed at the southwest corner of East Douglas and Parker Streets in Prairie Grove.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 9, 2015, becoming the first structure of its kind to be added the list.

But the change in attitudes about the past started with a simple traffic accident in the early morning hours of June 14, 2014, when an SUV veered out of control and leveled the aluminum and glass structure just off U.S. Highway 62.

“When I first got the call that the

telephone booth has been knocked down, well, I’ll tell you, my first thought was: ‘well good we won’t have to fret and worry about that old thing anymore.’ But my thinking quickly got changed,” said David Parks, chairman of PGTelco, the local telephone company.

Parks admitted his first assessment was, “It is just a phone booth.”

But that assessment, like his thinking about the structure changed.

“Today I stand here with a much different attitude about the phone booth and am appreciative of our community on how much they have shown that such reminders of the past do matter.”

Parks said his cousin Susan Parks-Spencer was one of the first to call him about the phone booth being wrecked.

Spencer and another family had already heard from several individuals in the community about the overwhelming sense of tragedy that the community was losing a vital part of its past and heritage with the phone booth damaged.

Questions were being asked: Who would fix it? Would the phone booth be replaced?

“A group of people had already mobilized and put the phone booth on a trailer and moved it out the way to keep people from scavenging it,” Parks said.

But it was later as the calls from the media and the memories spread by Facebook, word of mouth and all the stories that began to circulate about how this tiny structure over the years was indeed an integral part of the community that changed minds.

“And then the media calls began,” Parks said. “First, it was the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and KNWA.” Next came calls from The New York Times, and a week later both a reporter from the New York Times and a photographer came to town, Parks said. “It’s not every day the New York Times says it is coming to Prairie Grove to talk with you.”

More calls came, one from the Reuters news agency so now the story was an international news item. Then several magazines, including Preservation magazine and the Smithsonian, all sent inquiries about the phone booth.

Those calls plus the “local buzz” about the status of the phone booth, quickly changed his thinking, Parks said to the crowd at the lecture.

Once the structure was brought to the PGTelco shop, Parks said he turned the project over to Patrick Smith, a “Mr. Fixit” for the company. “If Patrick Smith said it could be fixed, it could be fixed and saved,” Parks said.

Smith, who was at the lecture on Saturday, was asked to stand as the room applauded his efforts.

Smith told the attendees the refurbished booth is “better than it was when we started work on it,” and “looks pretty good today.”

Others telling tales about their personal memories of the phone booth included Mark Kinion, a Prairie Grove native and Fayetteville alderman who is the Democratic nominee for Washington County judge. “I can tell you that booth was used to let your mom know that you and your friends were in town (Prairie Grove) and you would be a little bit later getting back out to the farm.”

In his 14 years with the Arkansas Department of Heritage, Wilcox, the main speaker of the event, said he had seen “only a few communities so strong for a nomination to become a reality.”

Wilcox was joined at the event by Mason Toms, the Restoration Service and Design Coordinator for the Department of Heritage. Both men had met earlier in the day with downtown Prairie Grove business owners to discuss, perhaps, seeking a Historic District designation for the downtown.

“Today I stand here with a much different attitude about the phone booth and am appreciative of our community on how much they have shown that such reminders of the past do matter.” David Parks PGTelco