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Historic Elks Club

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1908. 500 Mena St.
  • (Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, A Division of the Department of Arkansas Heritage)

Located on a corner in the heart of downtown, the Elks Club officially housed Lodge No. 781, but from the beginning it hosted community activities as well, including a 1908 reception for presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. The large, two-story rectangular hipped-roof structure faced with smooth red bricks exhibits a mixture of styles. A Mission-style parapet breaks the roof over the entrance, while it is balanced by the wide, horizontal lines of the overall massing, doorways, porch, and hovering eaves. But the spacious wraparound porch with its Tuscan columns and classical balustrades strikes a dominant Colonial Revival note. The porch has been restored with the requisite pale blue beadboard ceiling. A massive brick fireplace flanked by inglenook benches is the most interesting of the few remaining original fixtures. Having stood vacant and deteriorating from 1984, the building was rehabilitated in 1986 to serve as office space.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors
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Citation

Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors, "Historic Elks Club", [Mena, Arkansas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AR-01-PL5.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Arkansas

Buildings of Arkansas, Cyrus A. Sutherland and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018, 156-156.

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