Pryor Scrapbook Clippings, 1955-1980

AS IT LOOKS TODAY -The Beniamin Clayton Black home on the corner of East Race Avenue and Locust originally boilt in is on 1858 as a two-roory, .house .and later ~emodeled to the way it . Historic places. In the la~e 1860s when Benja~in Clayt~~ Black.bought a [ In 1886 B!ack w~s elected ma~pr of Searcy and serve<Bn · two-room house on the corner of East Race Avenue and that capacity until 1894. He then became postmaster and I Locust in Searcy and then later remodeled it into a two-· l was also sherif~ ar~nd the tur!1 of the cent~y. · story home to accommodate his quickly growing family, it I ~lack_ and hlS Wife gave birth to ,~1 ~hildren~, one of · probably never occurred to him that over 100 years later w~ich died at an early age. Lorena or Miss Rena as she i the house would serve as a pe~tual reminder to Sear- 1 was called, born in January of 1878 was the last to surv.,e. ! cia'ns of the days when ~arcy was just a small sleepy After .serving in Washington D.C. as a secretary during town. , orld War I she returned to Searcy and lived in the house Thanks to a recent purchase of the house by Dr. P<>rter wmr Her cteatn Th May of 1979 a e age oIT0l: She never Rodge.rs Jr. at ,a - t:>Hc §Uctioftt. the house will live on. married.. -Rodgers' $81,000 bl . ·· · · · . Dr. Rodgers noted that he can remember as a child liv- 1 between the Black House and bis own home beat out the ing next-door to the Blacks when six of the children who next highest bidder, Bill Yarbrough. 1 were elderly then, lived in the house together. " I bQught the hO\l&e just to se~ that it survived and to I "People thought the Blacks were a little eccentric with preserve a part of old Searcy, and in the interest of protec- four bachelors and two unmarried sisters all living in the ting my own property. I would have hated~to see a j house. " . , business go in next door to me. I plan to offer it (the house) Of the to surviving children, five boys and five girls, to any civ1c group in the city, or the city itself, which will ( three of the.boys never marr100 and ofie only for a shore do some restoration work on it, will maintain it and keep f time,and two of the girls likewise never married. . "\he grass mowed and will pay the taxes on it," Rodgers The house deteriorating, in need of several repairs, has said. I set unoccupied since the death of Lorena last year. The • I Black, a Confedei:ate Captain in the Wat Between the house is listed on the National Register of Historical . States, married shortly· ~fter the war . and bought the l places. house which was situated next to his father-in-law, W .A.B· What will happen to the house now is uncertain but some Jones, who had a log cabin where Rodgers' home now ideas have come up. Mrs. Rodgers said she would like to stands . Black, an_ alrea~y es~blished townsman who I see " the house become tp Searcy w t Trapnall Hall is_to formed a mercantile busmess m 1862 (one of three new LiUle rtocK. A pnrce,ort."IVrc--crcros- w meet,· weadmg businesses for~ed in Searcy that year) was later to receptions, luncheons.etc." · become an important part of the then-young Searcy and " I plan to have estima~es made to see how much,. it its growth after the war. . . will cost to do the restoration work _needed, then the city Black took his new bride to New Orleans on their honey-, fathers will get together and see what can be done to moon where he saw the new type of architecture that he maintain the house," Dr. Rodgers said. " I can assure you wanted for his house and later had shipped to Searcy when that the last thing we want to do is to see the house torn ·, f work on the house_was started, acc~rdi-~ to_ Bob Chap- down, but what will happen ·to it exactly will be decided . ~ man, the only refative to the Blacks still bvmg m Searcy. . within the next few weeks." In 1872 Black a board director on the newly created Searcy Branch Railroad was awarded, along with Israel Moore, a contract to build a wooden, horse or mule drawn railroad from Searcy to Kensett where the C. and F. rail~d was to come through. The path of the old wooden railroad is the same path used by the railroad today that goes near Harding University. ·•