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| Abrams House |
ABRAMS HOUSE, LITTLE ROCK, PULASKI COUNTY
SUMMARY
Built in 1904 for the Charles W. Abrams family, the Colonial Revival cottage at 300 South Pulaski Street is one of a handful of survivors of the era when the streets immediately east and north of the Arkansas State Capitol were lined with modest homes occupied by employees of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern (later Missouri Pacific) Railway. The significance of the house is based on its association with this important chapter in Little Rock's history, when the presence of a major railroad facility prompted development of a neighborhood, and on its modest but nearly unaltered Colonial Revival design.
ELABORATION
During the late 19th century, when the State Penitentiary stood on the site now occupied by the Arkansas State Capitol, a neighborhood of modest homes began developing along the streets in the vicinity of the penitentiary. It was not the penitentiary, however, that prompted the building of these houses. Rather, the neighborhood's development came on the heels of the construction in 1873 of Union Depot, located about three blocks north of the penitentiary. The depot, Little Rock's first railroad facility, represented jobs, and the neighborhood that grew up around it was populated by engineers, foremen, conductors, mechanics, and others who worked for the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railway.
Construction of modest homes in the vicinity of Union Depot renamed "Union Station" when a new and larger building was erected in the 1920s continued into the early 20th century. By the second decade of this century, about 300 dwellings, predominantly shotguns and cottages influenced by the Colonial Revival style, stood in the blocks surrounding the station. Also during the early 1900s, the new Arkansas State Capitol was built on the penitentiary site.
In 1904, Charles W. and Maggie Abrams became one of the railroad families who built a home near Union Depot. Charles Abrams was a foreman and master mechanic for the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railway. He and his wife raised three children Charles, Jr.; Nellie; and Ann at 300 South Pulaski Street before losing the home in 1917 as the result of a foreclosure action.
The modest nature of the neighborhood around Union Station and the limited resources of its residents are reflected in the history of the Abrams House. Not only did the Abrams family lose the house but two subsequent purchasers had similar problems. During the Depression, the house became the property of a building and loan association until it was sold in 1933 to a North Little Rock family that divided it into three rental units and owned it until 1998.
During this period, the name of the train station changed again as mergers turned the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern into the Missouri Pacific or MoPac Railway.
The decline of the neighborhood around MoPac Station that began during the Depression accelerated after World War II, echoing the nationwide decline in railroad transportation. Railroad jobs were eliminated, and MoPac Station slowly shut down. Changes in zoning that encouraged commercial development, along with an ever-growing demand for state office space and parking, led during the 1950s and 1960s to the demolition of the vast majority of houses that once comprised the neighborhood. Today, the Abrams House is one of just a few houses still standing in the blocks east of MoPac Station and the State Capitol. It is a scarce and largely unaltered representative of a major impact development of a neighborhood of railroad workers that railroad transportation had on Little Rock during the late 19th and early 20thcenturies.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Insurance Maps of Little Rock, Arkansas. Vol. II. New York: Sanborn Map Co., 1939.
Insurance Maps of Little Rock, including Argenta and Pulaski Heights, Arkansas. Vol. I. New York: Sanborn Map Co., 1913.
Little Rock, Arkansas. Capitol Zoning District Commission. "The Capitol Area Framework Master Plan, Update 1998."
Little Rock, Arkansas. Jameson Architects, P. A. "Abstract of Title to East 100 feet of Lot 12, in Block 333, City of Little Rock."
Little Rock City Directories: 1903-04 through 1951.
Roy, Hampton F. and Charles Witsell with Cheryl Griffith Nichols. How We Lived: Little Rock As An American City. Little Rock: August House, 1984.
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