LITTLE ROCK — Darrell Brown looks over the long-abandoned Roundtop Filling Station in Sherwood and says he can visualize when the uniquely shaped building was a bustling business back in the day.
Situated on a triangular plot of land where Trammel Road meets Roundtop Drive on the edge of Sherwood just west of Arkansas 161 - what was until the 1960s part of U.S. 67 - the gas station was a well-known stop for travelers.
“This was the only place that had available restrooms between Searcy and Little Rock,” explained Brown, chairman of the newly formed Sherwood History and Heritage Commission. “It was right off Old U.S. 67. This was a busy place at one time.”
The city’s History Commission started up about two weeks ago, Brown said, and restoring the Roundtop Filling Station into a Sherwood police substation is the panel’s first project.
“This is my new pet project,” said Brown, who is employed as an interpreter and living historian for the Historic Arkansas Museum under the state Department of Arkansas Heritage. “It was literally two weeks ago I took this on.”
The Roundtop station was built in 1936 under the Pierce Oil name, and later operated under the Sinclair and DX gasoline brand. The station closed in 1972, Brown said, and is often (even recently) vandalized, being on an edge of the city limits across from railroad tracks.
However, because of its significance in state highway history, its location along the main thoroughfare between Little Rock and St. Louis and its distinctive architecture, the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Arkansas 161, known as the “Old Jacksonville Highway,” was originally part of U.S. 67. The designation changed in the early 1960s, according to state Highway and Transportation Department information, when U.S. 67’s current location was built from North Little Rock to Jacksonville, less than 1 1/2 miles west of the filling station.
Sherwood, incorporated in 1949, annexed the area around the station in 1975. The privately owned station property was donated to the city in 1999.
The History Commission is seeking matching grants to pay for the estimated $175,000 to restore the site, said Kelly Coughlin, Sherwood’s economic development director. Of that total, the commission needs to raise “in the ballpark of $60,000” to match any grants obtained, Coughlin said.
What is also needed, both said, is information, memories and photos of the old station.
“This place was so beautiful. I remember coming through here as a child,” Coughlin said. “My relatives told me they always wanted to stop here because they knew it had clean bathrooms.”
Brown said that although many have told him they remember the station, he’s had trouble finding any photos of it in operation.
“We can visualize it,” Brown said, referring to what the station must have looked like judging from its layout. “But, until we see it on paper, we don’t know.”
The site was used in the 2012 movie The Last Rideabout country singing legend Hank Williams Sr. The movie was filmed in central Arkansas and produced by Arkansan Harry Thomason. Some present features of the filling station - the painted-on “Gas/ Oil and Groceries” sign on its side and a new roof - were paid for by the movie production crew, Coughlin said.
“This was the Rock ’n’ Roll Highway. That’s what it was called,” she said about the old U.S. 67. “We’d love to hear more stories about it.”
Brown said there are “ people in central Arkansas who must remember this place,” and he is hoping the restoration project will jog some memories and uncover mementoes of the old place.
“We’re looking for pictures and for anybody who has more in-depth information about it,” he said.
“Right now we’re just trying to get the word out, start raising money and try to do something with this place,” Brown added. “Our goal is not just to restore it but to use it.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/11/2013