Roundtop

It is almost a little surreal driving to the old Roundtrip Filling Station in Sherwood. First you drive by the rows of car dealerships and chain restaurants along the suburban concrete expanse of Hwy. 67/167. Then you head east on a road that plunges through a dark and murky swamp. Next you pass an assorted collection of homes until you see the old station, which looks so out-of-place here that it seems randomly placed like someone hit the wrong button on a game of Sim-City. 

 

The station was built in 1936 for the Pierce Oil Company. The station closed in 1981, and then it sat empty and abandoned for a few decades. The building was the victim of the typical decay and vandalism, and was listed in 2013 as one of the state's endangered historical structures by the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas. But in a rare Arkansas preservation success story, the city of Sherwood began renovating the building in 2013. Progress was halted when an arsonist tried to burn the building down in 2014, but the building reopened in 2015 as a police substation.