Old State House Museum Collections Blog

   In 1981, roughly 16,000 architectural drawings by Charles L. Thompson were donated to the Old State House Museum.  Hundreds of Thompson's buildings still stand across the state of Arkansas, and in order to make this resource more accessible, we have spent the last few years digitizing the drawings and making them available online for public viewing.   You can view those drawings and records that are currently available at the following link - eMuseum Thomspon Drawings.  We also accommodate information requests for those drawing not yet online, as well as high resolution scans.  Below is an excerpt from the Old State House Museum page concerning Thompson.

    Charles L. Thompson was born in November 1868, the third of James C. and Henrietta Lightner Thompson's seven children. Charles became a draftsman at an Indiana mill, but, dissatisfied, he decided to seek employment elsewhere.
    On his way home from New Orleans in 1886, Thompson stopped in Little Rock. He chose to stay here, in part, because there were many opportunities for his architectural expertise. Later, he was quoted as saying that he chose Little Rock because it was "the farthest in the wilderness." Thompson began work for Benjamin J. Bartlett; in 1888, he became an architect and full partner in the firm. In 1890, Bartlett left for Mississippi and the firm became known as Charles L. Thompson, Architect and Superintendent. Throughout the next several decades, Thompson worked by himself and with a variety of partners. Many homes in the historic Quapaw Quarter were designed or modified by Thompson or his firm. His work was not limited to central Arkansas. Carnall Hall at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (ca. 1900), the Newport Jr. and Sr. High School in Newport (ca. 1930), the Monroe County Courthouse in Clarendon (ca. 1911), and the Charles H. Murphy, Sr. House in El Dorado (ca. 1926) are just a few of Thompson's designs located around the state. Charles L. Thompson retired in 1938. After 20 further years of retirement service to his community, he died in 1959 at age 91.

The Walter W. Brown Home, Camden


The A. N. Tanner House, Helena

The Peter Hotze House, Little Rock


For more information on Charles L. Thompson, see F. Hampton Roy's book Charles L. Thompson and Associates: Arkansas Architects, 1885-1938.

By Katherine Benenati
LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas’ history is in a metal building off La Harpe Boulevard, across from a law firm and just outside the bustle of downtown Little Rock.
Confederate flags thin with age are carefully tucked in acid-free frames laid flat in drawers.
Souvenirs of governors’ past are cushioned in little green boxes with tags: “Gov. David Pryor items 1975-1979.”
Looking across gray metal row after gray metal row in the 8,066-square-foot building that houses the Old State House Museum’s archives, curator Joellen Maack paused.
“There are times you feel like it’s a mini version of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark,” she said, referring to a vast warehouse of artifacts in the Indiana Jones movie.
The carefully catalogued rows are home to some of Little Rock socialite Willie Oates’ hats and a Johnny Cash guitar.
“We just have the most wonderful things,” Maack said, standing in one row lined with portraits, watercolors, sketches and an autographed photograph of Gov. Jim Guy Tucker’s 1996 staff.
“We have beautiful paintings, beautiful flags, wonderful gowns and then we have items like this,” she said pointing to an old spin washer that predates washing machines and resembles a modern toilet plunger.
The Old State House, completed in 1842, was Arkansas’ first Capitol building. At any given time 10 percent or less of the 60-year-old museum’s collection is on display at 300 W. Markham St.
Many items are so delicate they are rarely displayed. Some date to 1819 - 17 years before Arkansas became a state.
“There’s just no way you can put your whole collection on exhibit,” Maack says.
In a sense, the museum has been trying to do just that since August when it began offering its online eMuseum, a part of the Gallery Systems software it has used since 2004.
Click below to continue reading.

 
As promised, here is the extended audio version of our first podcast on the history of the University of Arkansas Medical School at the Old State House.  Additionally, I've upload the full 40 minute interview with Dr. Wolfe, for those who would like more information.

Audio Podcast

Full Interview with Dr. Jon Wolfe

    With this post we are proud to debut a new series of collections podcasts designed to focus on particular objects in the Old State House Museum Collection.  For the first podcast, we decided to look at the history of the building itself, as it is our largest and most important artifact. The Old State House has had numerous uses since the beginning of its construction in 1833, particularly after the state capitol moved to its current site in 1911.  Several organizations sought shelter at the Old State House prior to the building being re-purposed as a museum in 1949.  Some of these organizations include the Arkansas State Police, various women's organizations, the American Legion, and so on.  But the group that came to dominate the building during this period was the University of Arkansas Medical School. 

   To learn more about the medical school at the Old State House, we visited Dr. Jon Wolfe from UAMS.  Dr. Wolfe has previously curated an exhibit on medical education at the museum and is certainly an expert on the subject.  The two-part video below is the result of our research and interview with Dr. Wolfe.  The images used are almost entirely from the Old State House collection and the UAMS Historical Collections.

Part One


Part Two


For more information about the history of the medical school, consult David Baird's Medical Education in Arkansas, 1879 - 1978.

In the near future, we'll be posting an audio version of the podcast to this site and iTunes.  Additionally, we will make the entire Dr. Wolfe interview available through this site.  To view all our videos, click podcast button in the menu bar at the top of the page. To subscribe to our podcast, click the appropriate button below.