The UALR Center for Arkansas History and Culture has been awarded $8,426 from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize over 600 blueprint sheets of buildings in Little Rock.
The drawings to be digitized include many buildings that have been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, including the Women’s City Club building and Hotel Freiderica; as well as buildings under current renovation downtown, including the Sterling Building and the Boyle Building.
2015 marks the 25th anniversary of the drawings’ opening to the public in 1990. Cromwell Architects Engineers donated the collection, which includes churches, schools, businesses, and residences, dating from the early 1900s to the 1940s.
The grant focuses on digitizing the most fragile drawings from this collection, specifically non-residential buildings, pre-1929.
The bulk of the drawings were done by the architectural firm, Sanders and Ginocchio, which later merged with Charles Thompson’s firm and is today the Cromwell Architects Engineers.
The digitization project begins in March. Once completed, the public will be able to access the digitized blueprints through the Center’s electronic catalog, www.arstudies.com.
