Crossett Municipal Building
Designed to bring all of Crossett’s municipal services under one roof, the 1953 Art Deco municipal building on Main Street represents the civic ambition of a small Arkansas city built on the timber industry, its brick and limestone facade now recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.
At a glance
The Crossett Municipal Building stands at 307–309 Main Street in the small city of Crossett, Arkansas, county seat of Ashley County. Designed by the firm of Trapp, Clippard & Phelps and completed in 1954 by contractor C.W. Vollmer & Co., it was built to consolidate the city’s scattered municipal services — the public library, the fire station, and the municipal offices — into a single Art Deco building. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, it is one of the finest surviving examples of postwar civic Art Deco in Arkansas.
Key facts
- Built: 1953–1954
- Style: Art Deco
- Architects: Trapp, Clippard & Phelps
- Builder: C.W. Vollmer & Co.
- NRHP listed: September 20, 2007 (#07000966)
- Address: 307–309 Main Street, Crossett, Arkansas
- GPS: 33.12806, −91.96139
History
Crossett grew as a company town around the Crossett Lumber Company, which clear-cut and then replanted the longleaf pine forests of Ashley County beginning in the early twentieth century. By the early 1950s the city had stabilized as a mid-sized timber and paper industry hub, and civic leaders moved to consolidate the scattered municipal services — then housed in separate buildings across town — into a single purpose-built structure.
The firm of Trapp, Clippard & Phelps designed a building that addressed this program with characteristic postwar pragmatism: a brick-and-limestone Art Deco composition whose three-wing plan assigned the library to the north, the fire station to the south, and the municipal offices to the central block. The library moved to a new facility in the 1960s; the municipal offices and fire station continued to operate in the building for decades. The NRHP listing in 2007 recognized the building as a significant surviving example of postwar civic Art Deco in a region where such buildings have often been replaced.
What you see
The Crossett Municipal Building demonstrates how Art Deco adapted to modest postwar civic budgets without abandoning its essential character. The primary facade in brick is accented with limestone trim at the entrance bay and above the windows, a combination that achieves the material contrast fundamental to Art Deco composition within tight cost parameters. The entrance features the geometric ornament typical of the style — recessed panels, stylized pilasters, incised lettering — organized with the bilateral symmetry that communicates official function.
The building’s three-wing plan is readable from the street: the slightly taller central block houses the offices and the council chambers, while the flanking wings — lower and more utilitarian — express the service functions (library, fire station) they originally housed. This honest expression of program through massing is one of the building’s architecturally interesting qualities, a functional transparency characteristic of the best civic design of its era.
Practical information
- The building remains in active municipal use; public areas accessible during business hours.
- The exterior is freely viewable from Main Street.
- Crossett is a small city in rural Ashley County; the building is best visited as part of an exploration of the region’s timber-industry heritage.
Getting there
Crossett is located in extreme southeastern Arkansas, approximately 100 miles southeast of Little Rock via US-65 and AR-133. Monroe, Louisiana, is about 75 miles south. The building stands at 307–309 Main Street in the heart of downtown Crossett.
Nearby
- Crossett Experimental Forest — USDA Forest Service research site covering Georgia-Pacific timber lands
- Ashley County Historical Museum — local history including the timber industry that built the region
- Overflow National Wildlife Refuge — bottomland hardwood habitat in the Arkansas Delta, 20 miles north
- Hamburg, AR — county seat with additional Depression-era WPA architecture, 20 miles north
Sources
- Wikipedia: “Crossett Municipal Building”
- National Register of Historic Places listing #07000966 (September 20, 2007)
- Wikimedia Commons: Crossett_Municipal_Building,_front.JPG, CC BY-SA 3.0
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