The Smithville Public School Building is a historic school building on

Arkansas Highway 117 Arkansas Highway 117 (AR 117, Hwy. 117) is a north–south state highway in Lawrence County, Arkansas. The route of runs from a junction of Highway 25 and Highway 230 in Strawberry north across US Route 63/US 412 (US 63/US 412) to 3rd ...

in the small community of

Smithville, Arkansas Smithville is a town in Lawrence County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 78 at the 2010 census. History Euro-American settlers first came to the area of Smithville in 1808. Smithville became the county seat of modern-day Lawrence Co ...

. It is a single-story T-shaped fieldstone structure with a cross-gable roof.

History

It was built in 1936 with funding from the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

in an attempt to bolster the community's economy, which had been affected by the Great Depression, and by the loss of its status as

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

when Sharp County was separated from Lawrence County. In the 1980s, the building was in poor condition, so state legislators distributed 140,000 dollars to repair the building. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on January 11, 1993. It now functions as a

fire station __NOTOC__ A fire station (also called a fire house, fire hall, firemen's hall, or engine house) is a structure or other area for storing firefighting apparatuses such as fire engines and related vehicles, personal protective equipment, fire h ...

References

School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Arkansas Buildings and structures in Lawrence County, Arkansas School buildings completed in 1936 National Register of Historic Places in Lawrence County, Arkansas {{LawrenceCountyAR-NRHP-stub

History

See also

References