Correction: Raymond Nichols was the last postmaster in Glade, said Stanley Williams of Pea Ridge. The reference to Nichols was misattributed in this article.
A community that's mostly at the bottom of Beaver Lake got its old post office building back on Monday.
The building that housed the Glade Post Office and store from about 1890 to 1945 was hauled 20 miles from Pea Ridge to a hill on Slate Gap Road overlooking the lake.
Liss Williams saved the building 53 years ago from being flooded by the damming of the White River to create Beaver Lake.
With notice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the building would be underneath the lake waters, Williams had it moved to his farm near Pea Ridge. There, it became a storage shed for hay and other things.
"It's been in a field for over 50 years," said Patricia Heck of Garfield, Williams' daughter and president of the Glade Community Historical Society Inc., founded in November 2011 to preserve Glade's history.
Liss Williams' son, Stanley Williams of Pea Ridge, donated the building to the society. And Doris Briley of Rogers donated a piece of land next to the Coal Gap School, where children from the Glade community attended school.
On Monday, the building was returned to what's left of the community that it had served.
"It wasn't but just a half mile down here on the right," Stanley Williams, 77, said Monday, pointing down a hill off Slate Gap Road toward the lake to where the store once stood.
He remembers it from childhood. Slots for mail. Bins for grain and groceries. The wood burning stove in the center. Old men holding forth.
"Everybody in Glade and Coal Gap Community was rich," Williams said. "They didn't have no money, but they was rich. They were rich in other things. It was a good life. If a neighbor got in trouble, there was somebody there to help him."
Stanley Williams said the post office and store closed in 1945. Raymond Nichols said he was the last postmaster in Glade.
Heck said the first record of a Glade postmaster that she found was for Simon McGinnis in 1903, but there were references to a Glade Post Office during the Civil War.
Heck said she believes the building moved Monday served as the Glade Post Office and store from about 1890 to 1945.
When asked where kids in Glade got a Coke, Heck said such things were exotic to them. She got a Coke once a year, on the Fourth of July.
Moving the building cost $8,000, which the Benton County Historical Preservation Commission paid, Heck said.
The building's old roof was removed before the move. A new tin roof will be installed, then the building will be renovated.
In 2013, when the water level of Beaver Lake was at a historical low, 52 stones were salvaged from the lake bottom. They had served as the foundation for the Glade Post Office and store. The stones will be placed around the building in some sort of ornamental fashion. People can donate $50 to get their names attached to one of the stones.
The wood frame building is 36 by 22 feet, said Ronnie Howard of Howard House Moving in Dora, Mo. Howard measured it before beginning the 20 mile drive on Monday to the new location. Benton County deputies provided an escort and there was little traffic, so it only took an hour and a half, Howard said.
Anita Frevert of Garfield started the work to preserve Glade's history, and Heck is continuing it.
In 1998, reunions were started for children who had attended Coal Gap School. Eight grades were taught in the small school house.
Heck said she's doing oral history interviews now with residents and former residents.
Glade is all but a ghost town. The part above the lake looks like rolling hills with occasional houses. Motorists aren't fooled by a sign on Slate Gap Road that reads "Glade, Arkansas, established 1858, next six exits."
"It has become a fictional place," Heck said.
But then she corrected herself, saying Glade had been resurrected in the digital era.
"The Corp put it on their maps, so it's on my GPS, so it is there," Heck said.
NW News on 07/15/2014