James A. Villines Farmstead: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Buffalo National River
Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program. 2014. James A. Villines Farmstead: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Buffalo National River. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 500925. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. NPS Midwest Regional Office, Omaha, Nebraska / CRIS-CL Database
Inventory Unit Description: The James A. Villines “Beaver Jim” Farmstead (Villines Farmstead) is part of the larger Boxley Valley cultural landscape and is located in the northern tip of the area, approximately one half mile east of Ponca, Arkansas. The farmstead is along the eastern edge of the Buffalo River and floodplain. It is bound to the north and west by the river, to the east by a ridge line, and to the south by Leatherwood Creek and a tributary. Boxley Valley (Big Buffalo Valley Historic District) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1987. The 8,000 acre district is significant for its rural cultural landscape dotted with distinctive agricultural patterns, architectural styles, and natural setting with a period of significance spanning 1840 to present. The 44-acre Villines Farmstead comprises a log house, numerous outbuildings, agricultural fields, roads, road traces, and access to water through springs and creeks. Land use at the Villines Farmstead follows larger Boxley Valley patterns, including key architectural periods of development. The Villines house, a log building initially constructed in the mid-nineteenth century, is noted as a distinctive example of the Old-Ozarks-Frontier phase and consists of log and stone construction built 1830-1870. The landscape surrounding the Villines house and outbuildings is lined with road traces and evidence of agricultural practices including numerous rock piles that are the likely results of field clearing practices. While associated agricultural fields currently lie dormant, evidence of their existence is clear in historic aerial photographs, the abovementioned rock piles, and connecting/delineating road traces.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program
- Date of Issue
- 2014-07-21
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- BUFF , MWR
- Keywords
- agriculture, archeology, architecture, Beaver Jim Cabin, Beaver Jim Villines Farm, Boxley Valley, Buffalo River, Ethnographic Landscape, exploration-settlement, farmstead, Historic Vernacular Landscape, James E Black Cabin, landscape architecture, Ozark, rural cultural landscape, subsistence agriculture