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Don Brown, History and Architectural Heritage of S

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Stone County, named for its numerous rocky ridges and rocky soil, is widely known for its preservation of Ozark folk music and culture. The county courthouse, still in use, was built in 1922. The two-story building is made of large hand-cut stone. The wall surrounding the structure that creates the court square was built with stones from all four corners of the county.

Stone County Courthouse

The Stone County Museum is operated by volunteers in a historic school built in 1928. This public school replaced the private Stone County Academy and served children of all grades until another school was built a decade later. This building was used as a school until the 1980s. n December 2004, the building was placed on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places. In the spring of 2006, the museum was expanded to include a larger research room and more space for Stone County artifacts donated or on loan to the museum.

Stone County Museum

Wildflower Bed &amp; Breakfast on the Square is a two-story, rectangular wood-frame building covered in weatherboard. It features a wrap-around porch with exposed rafters and boxed columns standing on dressed stone piers, pairs of double-hung windows, and a one-story shed addition on the east facade. The main entrance and lobby are located on the southwest corner of the building. The hotel was built by L.C. Johnson who recognized an opportunity to provide lodging for travelers to the city. At the time, Mountain View was a growing community and this attracted visitors to the city. The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

Wildflower Bed &amp; Breakfast on the Square is one of only two hotels built in the 1920s still standing in Mountain View. It was built in 1925 and originally called the Commercial Hotel. It was designed in the Craftsman style and is located across the street from the courthouse square.

Wildflower Bed & Breakfast on the Square

The hotel, which is located a block from the Stone County Courthouse, was built by a man named John W. Webb during a time when the city saw increasing development and activity during the early 20th century. Webb saw an opportunity to provide a place to stay for people coming to Mountain View and decided to build the hotel. Other interesting features of the building include a porch supported by squared wood columns, and a decorative, curved bargeboard under the porch roof. The rest of the building is relatively simple in appearance. The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

The former Inn at Mountain View is a historic hotel built in 1920. It is currently closed as of 2021. It was originally called the Dew Drop Inn and is one of only two 1920s hotels left in the city. It is a wood-frame building and features a gabled portico where the main entrance is located.

Inn at Mountain View

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The Ozark Folk Center State Park at Moutain View is the only state park in Arkansas dedicated to the preservation and perpetuation of Southern mountain folkways and traditions. When opened in 1973, the park was hailed as a home for traditional crafts and music and has since become one of the important institutions preserving this particular way of life. The idea for the folk center grew from the success of the&nbsp;Arkansas Folk Festival, which debuted in April 1963 in Mountain View under the sponsorship of the Ozark Foothills Handicraft Guild later known as the Arkansas Craft Guild&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Rackensack Folkshore Society. Although the Folk Festival continues to highlight the crafts and music of the area, centered on the courthouse lawn and exhibiting crafts in tents, it was decided, after about a decade, that the heritage of the Ozarks needed a more permanent home. However this state park is huge it lay out is 637 acres worth of so much entertaining things, so it needed a more permanemt home for sure and a bigger one at that.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Proponents of the folk center idea believed that it would not only preserve the traditional music and folkways. This is so&nbsp;that it could also provide much needed jobs for one of the most economically depressed regions of the state. The impetus for the building of a folk center originally grew out of a plan to secure federal dollars for the construction of a much needed water and sewage system in Mountain View by means of applying for federal funds to be used in the construction of a music auditorium, which would, of course, necessitate such infrastructure. However,&nbsp;this idea grew from a 1963 brainstorming session between a group of Mountain View leaders and John Opitz, a regional director for the federal Area Redevelopment Administration. However, it was only in 1968 that Arkansas congressman Wilbur D. Mills&nbsp;was able to set aside $2.5 million in grants and loans for the project, following heavy lobbying by songwriter&nbsp;Jimmy Driftwood&nbsp;and others.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The Advanced Projects Corporation of New York won the contract to build and operate the Ozark Folk Center facility, and construction began in 1971. The facility is situated on a hilly, eighty acre tract at the north edge of town. In the spring of 1972, however, it became apparent that the contractor was in financial distress and unable to complete the contract plans. In May 1972, following extended negotiations, the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism entered into an operating lease agreement to operate and manage the demised premises. Today, the total leased area consists of 637 acres. It also includes the operation of all facilities at the Ozark Folk Center State Park, which include a restaurant, a sixty-room lodge, craft grounds, auditorium, gift shops, a firing range, and the park’s infrastructure. <div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Construction was completed at a cost of about $3.4 million, and the Ozark Folk Center State Park officially opened in May 1973. Facilities included a 1,060 seat music auditorium new seating has since reduced the capacity to 1,000, sixteen craft shops now twenty four craft demonstration areas. Which is&nbsp;a welcome center, a sixty unit lodge, a restaurant, food outlets in the crafts area, a conference center, and a gift shop. Extensive remodeling and additions in recent years have greatly enlarged the restaurant by adding so many things.&nbsp;&nbsp;Theater style seating in the large auditorium, preserved some log cabins that were moved to the park, upgraded the in-park public transportation, and refurbished the lodge rooms, conference center, and craft cabins was al things that completed this center.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;A year after the park opened, a support group known as the Committee of 100 was created by educator Bessie Moore. Women from each of the state’s seventy five counties, plus twenty five at large members, volunteer each year to support and raise funds for educational programs of the center. The committee established the Music Roots Program for youngsters, an herb garden, the park’s apprenticeship in crafts and music program, and the Ozark Cultural Resource Center, which archived well over 100,000 items. The OCRC provided opportunity for in house research of books, periodicals, manuscripts, and photographs on Ozark history, culture, folklore, music, and genealogy. Specific items available to researchers were over thirty years of live performances from the Ozark Folk Center State Park music theater, recordings of traditional and commercial country music dating from 1900, and rare sheet music dating to the early 1900s. In 2007, however, the park announced the closure of the OCRC. The research materials were transferred to the&nbsp;Arkansas History Commission in Little Rock&nbsp;where they are available for use. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Self guided tours of the crafts village take visitors to shops with demonstrations of basketry, Blacksmithing, printing, broom making, quilting, woodcarving, pottery, and several other pioneer skills. Apprenticeships and workshops are offered in music, herb gardening, folk dance, and crafts. Each spring, the park also conducts an Ozark Folk School, offering instruction in traditional Ozark crafts, music, and gardening. Elderhostels, an educational week of programs, classes, lectures, etc. for those fifty five years of age or older are scheduled throughout the season with folk themes ranging from hill culture to crafts and songs. Also located at the park is Loco Ropes Treetop Adventure Park, which offers zip-lining and other activities. This is a awesome place for a family vacation get away, which so much to do for everyone on the trip at any age.&nbsp;</div>

The Ozark Folk Center is an Arkansas living history state park located in scenic Mountain View, Arkansas dedicated to preserving and presenting Ozark cultural heritage and tradition to the public. University of Arkansas extension Service, in an early attempt to preserve the vanishing heritage of the Ozark mountains, assisted local craftsmen and musicians to form the Ozark Foothills Crafts Guild back in 1962. This Guild started with 30 people and grew to a membership of over 300 craftsmen and musicians. In the 1963 the guild, in the cooperation with the local civic organizations and education advocate Bessie Moore, organized the first Arkansas Folk Festival which attracted 15,000 people. Due to the success of the annual festival the guild realized that they needed a permanent home.

Mountain View Arkansas History and Culture

Stone County Courthouse

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