LITTLE ROCK - North Little Rock has its eyes on the future as the city builds upon its downtown district, but school district officials want to make sure it doesn't forget the past when it comes to the Ole Main High School building.
The North Little Rock School District recently announced plans to form a task force to provide direction to the school's Board of Education on how to preserve the historic building that is adjacent to the current high school, which opened in 2015.
Board members will suggest one person each for the committee along with three at-large positions and one designated position for the North Little Rock History Commission. The task force will meet and report to the School Board.
Board President Tracy Steele said he has already fielded numerous calls from people who want to be on the board.
"People are interested in what happens to Ole Main," Steele said. "People will often stop me in the store or at the gas station and ask me about what is going to happen to Ole Main. It's a city that is proud of its high school."
Harrel Hatch, supervisor of plant services for the North Little Rock School District, took school Superintendent Bobby Acklin and Steele on a tour of the vacant building Friday.
"This brings back memories," Steele said while standing in the empty lobby of the old school.
In 2012, North Little Rock residents voted to approve the $265 million construction project that led to the construction of a new high school that houses students in grades nine through 12.
High school students left Ole Main in 2015, and as the years passed its doors were closed to the public.
"I think now that the project is done, we can turn our focus to Ole Main," Steele said.
North Little Rock High School, or Ole Main, was constructed in 1928 and completed in 1930, said Sandra Taylor Smith, director of the North Little Rock History Commission. Little Rock architect George R. Mann of the firm Peterson, William, Mann, Wanger & King designed the large brick-and-concrete building.
"Two years earlier Central High was constructed by the same firm," Smith said. "You can see the similarities. Central had a Gothic style architecture, while we have an art-deco-style building."
A great deal of the original building remains. Chandeliers from 1929 still hang from the roof in the auditorium, original wooden doors still swing open, and the decades-old windows inside the iconic tower are still in place.
"There is so much history we can put on display here," Hatch said while illuminating the wide, expansive auditorium with his flashlight.
A lot of memories are attached to Ole Main, Steele said, including some that aren't pleasant.
For Richard Lindsey, the sight of Ole Main takes him back to Sept. 9, 1957, when he and five others attempted to desegregate the school.
"You can't pass by there without remembering that day," he said.
Lindsey and the others, all seniors from the all-black Scipio Jones High School, showed up Sept. 9 at Ole Main and attempted to enter the school, but a group of white students pushed and shoved them away from the steps, according to a Central Arkansas Library Systems article.
Principal George Miller and Superintendent F. Bruce Wright emerged from the school and asked the six students to step inside. The North Little Rock Six climbed the stairs again and reached the front door, but they were met by 20-30 white students blocking the entrance, according to the article. The white students refused to move, even after Wright threatened to suspend them for the year.
By noon, the article said, the crowd had grown to around 200.
"I know articles say it was only 250 people, but it felt like 500," Lindsey recalled. "People were calling us names, and they were throwing stuff at us. We didn't know if we were going to get out of there."
Wright told the black students to enroll in Scipio Jones High School because of the temperament of the crowd, according to the article, and the six students did not attempt again to desegregate the school.
"When I was younger I thought integration was something that happened in Mississippi or Alabama," Lindsey said. "I didn't realize how much hate would be involved, but it was there, right on our doorstep."
The North Little Rock School District did not desegregate until Sept. 3, 1964, when eight black students were admitted at the all-white Clendenin and Riverside elementary schools.
Lindsey said that despite his experience in 1957, he loves Ole Main.
"Years later I would see my kids walk up those steps," he said. "There is a lot of memories in that building, and there are some good memories."
"I had a man tell me that North Little Rock has a beautiful new school but has an eyesore out in front," Lindsey continued. "It's not an eyesore to me. It's Ole Main, and it's worth being saved."
Ole Main was more than an educational facility, Steele said. It was a place that brought the city together.
"When the school was integrated, the city was still pretty segregated and divided by the interstate," Steele said. "Ole Main was the place that brought people together. It brought our city together."
For several years, alumni of the original North Little Rock High School haven't been able to look inside the grand brick building where they attended classes.
"We just had a significant reunion, and we really wanted to have it in the building, but we couldn't," Smith said. "It was so disappointing. All that remains of the school that I went to is Ole Main."
Smith said she has heard stories about a man who sneaked through a window during his high school reunion just to get a peek at the old building.
"It's just a monumental building in this city," she said. "It's an iconic building in our city, and something you think of when you think of North Little Rock."
Ideas for the building flowed as school officials walked around it Friday.
"There is so much we can do with it," Acklin said. "I see it as a community building. It can be a part of the community."
Steele said he would like to see the school's administration occupy the first two floors of Ole Main, but he also would like to see it be more than just an administrative building. He said he envisions a banquet hall that could be used for high school reunions and other events along with a museum.
"Little Rock has done a great job of preserving their history with Central High and the Little Rock Nine," he said. "At the same time as the Little Rock Nine, six students were integrating North Little Rock High School. It could show how North Little Rock went from Dogtown to Titletown."
Renovations to Ole Main will cost a considerable amount of money, but Steele said he hopes to gain support from the private sector, the city and others because the building is much more than a school district issue.
"Ole Main is North Little Rock," he said.