HIWASSE — It sits shrouded by overgrown weeds and bushes while traffic whizzes by on a busy state highway.

The Holloway House, abandoned for years and deteriorating from lack of maintenance and exposure to the elements, has been on its spot in rural Benton County for more than a century.

There’s no historical marker indicating the house was once a thriving hotel for those passing through the heart of Northwest Arkansas’ apple country. The twostory structure is on no national or state registers of historic sites.

Camille Hatcher would like that to change.

“This is kind of a cool, old house, which I like,” Hatcher said, after peering through a first-story window. “If it could just get on a register, that would be great.”

Hatcher took a step toward making that a reality by nominating the property to the HistoricPreservation Alliance of Arkansas’ annual list of the 10 most-endangered buildings in the state.

The alliance agreed, placing it on a list that includes properties such as the 16-story 1929 Art Deco Medical Arts building in downtown Hot Springs; the 1936 Tudorstyle V.C. Kays House, the campus home of the first president at Arkansas State University-Jonesboro; and the 1920 Palace Theater in Benton.

The fact that the relatively unknown Holloway House is not a “grand Victorian house or iconic Main Street property” made it a “compelling listing,” said Vanessa Mc-Kuin, executive director of the alliance.

“The key is to bring attention to places that are historic that people might not know about,” McKuinsaid. The alliance gives priority to places that are on the National Register of Historic Places, “but we recognize that all historic properties are not on the national register yet,” she said.

The alliance announces endangered propertieseach May during Arkansas Heritage Month. Past lists included Ray Winder Field in Little Rock, Johnny Cash’s boyhood home in Dyess and the Bluff Shelter Archaeological Sites in Northwest Arkansas.

The Holloway House, also known through the years as the Pioneer House or Hiwasse Hotel, is at 13692 Arkansas 72 in Hiwasse, a community of 500 about 10 miles south of the Missouri border.

The Holloway House sits on land that was part of a homestead established in 1859, according to two local histories of the area - Dickson, Arkansas 1871-1898 and Hiwasse, Arkansas 1899-1994.

Hatcher belongs to the Butterfield Trails Chapter of Questers International, a club started in 1944 that encourages historical preservation, among other things.

A recently retired dental hygienist, Hatcher passed by the house on her daily commute from Bella Vista to Bentonville for 13 years. Until about five years ago, people were living there.

In the years since it wasvacated, it has grown dilapidated, she said.

The owner, Loren Holloway, lives just over the state line in Noel, Mo. Holloway, whose family has owned the house for almost 40 years, would like to see it saved, Hatcher said.

According to the local histories, by 1898, A.J. Nichols, Hiwasse’s postmaster, had constructed an eight-room house with three rooms to rent to overnight guests. The house contains a section of an earlier log house that was part of the homestead.

After Nichols sold the house around 1911, it served as a private residence, changing owners only a few times before the Holloways acquired it in 1973, according to the local histories.

Hiwasse, an early settlement in Arkansas, wasknown for its apples and apple products, according to the alliance. It was on the Frisco line, which ran west from Bentonville and Rogers to Oklahoma and the Indian Territory.

Hatcher hopes the property can be cleaned up and the house can be preserved and possibly transformed into a museum.

“This could be turned into something that [Hiwasse] could use,” she said.

Jan Cutcher, who operates a small-engine repair shop across the highway, said the house is probably the oldest building in Hiwasse.

“It would be nice if it was saved,” Cutcher said.“It’s a neat old house.”

This year’s most-endangered list includes one other property in Northwest Arkansas: part of the 1910 hotel knownas Oklahoma Row on the shores of Beaver Lake.

The resort town of Monte Ne in Benton County was flooded in the mid-1960s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the White River to make the lake. But Oklahoma Row was built on a hill, so the tower has remained above the water level for the most part.

The tower is about 3 miles east of Rogers, near the spot where Arkansas 94 Spur dead ends into the water.

Beaver Lake has lapped at the tower, eroding its foundation and creating the possibility of a collapse, according to an initial preservation plan.

The Corps of Engineers, which owns the property and is considering tearing it down as a last resort, is looking for partners to restore the Oklahoma Row tower.

Community, Pages 12 on 07/11/2012