Study to decide if courthouse will attain federal park status
Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007
NORFORK — The historic Jacob Wolf House, a center of commerce and culture in early Arkansas and the state’s oldest public structure, has been shuttered for years.
Lack of money has kept the territorial courthouse closed to the public, but a bill pending in the U. S. Senate could lead to the site opening to the public once again as part of the National Park Service.
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives approved a bill by 1 st District Congressman Marion Berry that directs the Department of Interior to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of including the 178-year-old Wolf House in the federal park system.
The measure in the Senate, HR 3998, includes eight other sites across the nation for study by the Secretary of the Interior, including the birthplace of former President Harry S. Truman in Lamar, Mo., and a Revolutionary War battle site in South Carolina.
Berry said he expects the bill to win in the Senate. The study, which would take about three years to complete, would be the first step in the process of including the Wolf House in the park system, he said.
As a federal park, the twostory log structure would be fully staffed and opened to the public, he said.
“That would be the salvation to it,” said Robert Bounds of Norfork, a student of local history who has worked with area volunteers since 1976 to preserve the building that has a commanding view of the White River in Baxter County.
The pre-statehood courthouse underwent extensive restoration in 2003 but essentially has been closed since then. The building is owned by Baxter County, which doesn’t have the funds to open it to the public on a regular basis. The county has installed a security system to protect the building from vandalism, fire and theft.
“It’s too valuable a structure to be left boarded up and just sitting down there,” said Richard Sheid, a Baxter County businessman who has pushed for years to make the building part of the National Park Service.
Berry, a Democrat, called the Wolf House “a national treasure.” “It’s been a historic meeting place, a courthouse, and a lot of famous people have come through there. It’s also a landmark on the river,” he said.
Built by Jacob Wolf as the region’s first permanent courthouse, the building and grounds proved to be an archaeological gold mine for the restoration team led by Little Rock architect Tommy Jameson, Bounds said.
Tree-ring dating on the building’s hand-hewn yellow-pine logs confirmed that the structure was built in 1829. Artifacts on the grounds painted a fuller picture of the site’s history and use.
“It’s not a lot of ‘Grandpa says this’ and ‘Grandpa says that’. It’s well-documented,” Bounds said.
Wolf was an officer in the territorial militia, a pre-statehood legislator, a skilled blacksmith and a canny businessman. He selected the site for his family’s residence in what was then Izard County. Wolf built several structures, including the courthouse, an outdoor kitchen, barns and slave cabins.
He fashioned the courthouse as a two-story building with a dogtrot — a central breezeway on the first level. The building became the region’s headquarters of pre-statehood government.
“Judges and lawyers traveled from distant parts of the territory to appear at regularly scheduled county and territorial court sessions,” Joan L. Gould of Fayetteville, a preservation expert and a member of the Wolf House restoration team, wrote in The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.
“John P. Houston, brother of American legend Sam Houston, served as county clerk in this courthouse. Families from throughout the county camped on the courthouse grounds when court was in session, socializing and competing in games,” Gould wrote.
When the territorial Legislature decided to relocate the county seat in 1835, Wolf sponsored legislation to deed the building to himself. The building became the family home for several generations.
More recently, Bounds and other volunteers struggled to keep the old log structure standing. Members of the Wolf House Memorial Foundation often dug into their own pockets for critical repairs.
They also opened the house for regular tours in the spring and summer months.
The city of Norfork, which had owned the house and grounds since the 1930 s, deeded the structure to Baxter County in 1999. County ownership — and the building’s original use as a county courthouse — allowed the building to qualify for a $ 500, 000 grant from the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program for the restoration work.
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