Arkansas Municipal League Highlights Lacey, Chester and the Beard and Lady Inn

Chester mayor envisions town revival
By Andrew Morgan, League staff

Published Spring 2024

Excerpt: Nestled in a valley amid the peaks of the Ozark
Mountains in northern Crawford County,
the town of Chester was once a thriving
timber community in the late 19th century,
with a prominent stop on the Frisco Railroad. A post
office, shops, churches, a school and a hotel were built
along the line in the span of just a few years. When the
rail line was extended to Fort Smith, business shifted
to the larger city to the south and Chester’s population
declined. Between 1908 and 1957, the town was also
beset by a series of disasters. Two fires and two floods
destroyed nearly the entire town.

Of Chester’s original buildings, only one structure
remains—a hotel and mercantile built in 1887 by Jacob
Yoes, a U.S. Marshal who served under Bass Reeves. It
is this building that Mayor Lacey Hendrix hopes will be
the anchor of her beloved community’s resurgence.
When Hendrix and her husband Lance were first
married, they spent time exploring and living abroad
in Egypt, western Asia and England before settling
stateside in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. The pull
of her hometown was strong, however, and the couple
moved back to Chester. They decided to invest in their
community and bought the Yoes building, which was
in severe disrepair after sitting on the market for several
years. “It was rough, y’all,” Hendrix says. “It was horror story
rough.”

Link: https://www.armunileague.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024_04_CnT_WEB-1.pdf