A favorite spot in North Little Rock for bridal and engagement photos, tour group visits or just a leisurely stroll, the Old Mill at T.R. Pugh Memorial Park and its surrounding grounds need constant attention to maintain and enhance the city park’s aesthetics.
A recent $6,000 donation by three grandsons of the park’s namesake awarded to the North Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department is earmarked to help maintain the park grounds, with future donations possible, city officials said.
The replica of an 1880s water-powered grist mill at Fairway Avenue and Lakeshore Drive was conceived by real estate developer Justin Matthews and completed in 1933 - well in time for movie director David Selznick to include a brief shot of the Old Mill in the opening sequence of the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind.
Matthews christened his creation in honor of his friend and business partner, Thomas R. Pugh of Portland, in Ashley County, for whom the surrounding park is named, according to a written history of the Old Mill.
George, Gus and Tom Pugh, grandsons of T.R. Pugh, worked with city’s Parks and Recreation Department’s Jeff Caplinger to offer a donation in their grandfather’s memory for the sole purpose of maintaining the park’s grounds. The donation was presented July 13 to Mayor Joe Smith outside the Old Mill, said Caplinger, project coordinator for the department.
“I think there was another family member who made the initial contact,” Caplinger said. “When it started getting closer to happening, George was the one contacting me about wanting to make a donation to the city. … Then some of the family members wanted to donate something additional to the [original] amount.”
Parks and Recreation Director Bob Rhoads called the donation “a pleasant surprise, and appreciated.” Specific plans for the money haven’t been decided, he added.
“Possibly it would be just for annuals or something to improve and help on the landscape,” Rhoads said. “At the time [of discussions], we didn’t know how much it would be.”
Friends of the Old Mill, a nonprofit group, works daily to help maintain the park’s grounds. A $140,000 project in 2007, paid for with a $70,000 state parks grant and matching funds from both the city and donations to the nonprofit group, added restrooms, a small amphitheater, removed overhead electrical wires and enhanced accessibility for disabled visitors. Walkways have also been extended and repaved, and benches have been donated to the park in recent years.
The latest donation by the Pugh family will help with yearly maintenance and improvements needed, said Robin Powell, the nonprofit group’s president. The group wasn’t consulted prior to the city receiving the donation, she added.
Bushes often need replacement, and there is an erosion problem on the park’s north side that will take funds to solve, she said.
“This might be something we could use for that problem,” said Powell, who is also special projects coordinator for the North Little Rock Visitors Bureau. “Lately we haven’t had to do anything really big.
“We have discussed putting in more picnic tables, but there’s just not a lot of room out there to put in a bunch of stuff,” Powell said. “We don’t want to clutter it up. We do have two picnic tables, I think, that could be replaced. There are a lot of people who go out there on their lunch hour and eat their lunch.”
Matthews donated the Old Mill and its surrounding park to the city in 1976. Ten years later, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Neither the Parks and Recreation Department nor the visitors bureau keeps records of visitors to the Old Mill and its park, but its well-publicized connection to Gone With the Wind and the park’s scenic beauty are constant attractions, Rhoads and Powell both said.
“We just book a slew of weddings and other things there,” Rhoads said.
Weddings need to be reserved through the Parks and Recreation Department, but Powell said there have also been impromptu weddings there where “just like four people show up.”
“Bus tours and motor-coach tours are always stopping there, too,” she said. “Most of the time they don’t let us know. They just stop, and people get off and they make pictures and go on their way. For prom, engagement and wedding photos, it’s just unbelievable how many are done there.
“Constantly, people are coming there, and they’re from all over,” Powell added. “Every time I go out there, it doesn’t matter what time it is or what day it is, I can count at least 30 people out there, and that’s probably in just an hour that I’m there.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/22/2013