This Old House

Sitting just off the edge of downtown Little Rock is the old Woodruff House, which is one of the oldest homes in the city. It was constructed in 1853 for William Woodruff, who founded the Arkansas Gazette newspaper. The home was used by Union soldiers during the Civil War as an officer's headquarters and as a hospital. The Woodruffs eventually sold the house in 1891, and it went through several uses in the decades afterwards. It was a women's boarding home for awhile, and then was divided into apartments. In 1999, a tornado damaged the building (taking out most of the roof and almost all of the windows). A fire caused some minor damage to the house in 2005, and it has been vacant ever since. Luckily the Quapaw Quarter Association acquired the house and did some repairs and stabilized the structure, and have made it available for purchase now. The Woodruff House would require a lot of work to get it to be livable again but it does have a great location - it is just right within walking distance of all the delicious beers being brewed at Lost Forty.