Phillips County is a county located in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Arkansas, in what is known as the Arkansas Delta along the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,568. The county seat is Helena–West Helena.
The Delta Cultural Center in downtown Helena, Arkansas, is a cultural center and museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage. It is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the culture of the Arkansas Delta. They also partner with other cultural organizations to interpret different cultural elements.
The Denison House is a historic house at 427 Garland Avenue in West Helena, Arkansas. It is a single-story brick structure with a broad and shallow hip roof with wide hip-roof dormers, built in 1910 by J. W. Denison, West Helena's first mayor. It has a wraparound porch supported by Tuscan columns. It is one of West Helena's finest Colonial Revival houses.
The Phillips County Courthouse is located at 622 Cherry Street in Helena-West Helena, the county seat of Phillips County, Arkansas. This 2.5 story municipal building has served as the county courthouse since 1915.
The Perry Street Historic District encompasses a fine collection of early-20th century architecture in Helena–West Helena, Arkansas. It includes fifteen buildings, arrayed on the single city blocks stretching south and west from the junction of Perry and Pecan Streets. The buildings on these blocks represent a cross-section of private and public architecture spanning 1880–1930, including two churches, the only synagogue in Phillips County, and the county's oldest public building, the 1879 Helena Library and Museum. Most of the residences in the district were built between 1900 and the 1920s. Although most of the residential architecture is Arts and Crafts in style, it includes two fine Queen Anne Victorians: the Moore House at 608 Perry and the William Nicholas Straub House at 531 Perry.
The University of Arkansas Campus Historic District is a historic district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 23, 2009. The district covers the historic core of the University of Arkansas campus, including 25 buildings.
The West House is a historic house at 229 Beech Street in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. It is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, built in 1900 for Mercer Elmer West by the Clem Brothers of St. Louis. The house exhibits stylistic elements of both the Colonial Revival, which was growing in popularity, and Queen Anne, which was in decline. It has a wide porch supported by Ionic columns, with a spindled balustrade. The house's corners are quoined. The main entry is flanked by slender columns supporting an architrave, and then by sidelight windows topped by a transom window. A Palladian window stands to the right of the door, and a bay window with a center transom of colored glass stands to the left.
The White House is a historic house at 1101 Perry Street in Helena, Arkansas. It is a two-story brick building, built in 1910 to a design by architect Charles L. Thompson. The Colonial Revival building has a pyramidal roof with projecting gable sections. A single-story porch wraps around two sides of the house, supported by grouped Tuscan columns. The front entry is framed by sidelight windows and pilasters. It is the only surviving Thompson design in Helena.
Several special routes of U.S. Route 49 exist. In order from south to north they are as follows.
The Jerome Bonaparte Pillow House is a historic house at 718 Perry Street in Helena, Arkansas. Architect George Barber designed the house, and it was built by Jerome B. Pillow in 1896. The building was donated to the Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas Foundation and was restored by that body as well as several members of the community who were successful in restoring the property to its original Queen Anne beauty. The Thompson-Pillow House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was opened after restoration in 1997.
St. Mary Church is a Catholic parish in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, in the North Delta deanery of the Diocese of Little Rock. It is located at 123 Columbia Street.
The Cherry Street Historic District is a historic neighborhood, commercial, and entertainment district serving as the downtown of Helena in Helena–West Helena, Arkansas. Cherry Street is located between Elm Street and the nearby Phillips County Courthouse to the north, and Porter Street to the south. The history of Cherry Street is tied to the blues heritage of the area beginning in the 1940s.
The Beech Street Historic District is a large residential historic district on the west side of the Helena section of Helena–West Helena, Arkansas. The district's spine is Beech Street, extending roughly from Phillips Street in the south to McDonough Street in the north, and widens out to include about three blocks each of College, Poplar, and Columbia Streets at its northern end. The district has long been a fashionable residential area of Helena, and includes a well-preserved diversity of residential architecture, dating from 1858 to 1935, with the Colonial Revival predominating. It includes 133 buildings, of which about 80 are historically significant. These properties are generally set on larger lots with attractive terraced landscaping.
The Coolidge House is a historic house at 820 Perry Street in Helena, Arkansas. It is a 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, built in 1880 by S. C. Moore as a wedding present for his daughter, Anna Leslie Moore, and Charles Coolidge, Jr. It is an excellent local example of Queen Anne styling, with numerous gables projecting from its steeply hipped and busy roof line. The porch extends partly across the front (south) before wrapping around to the west; it has sawn brackets and a spindled frieze, with a pedimented gable above the stairs.
The Faust House is a historic house at 114 Richmond Hill in West Helena, Arkansas. It is a single-story wood-frame structure, finished in brick. It has porch extending across its entire front facade, supported by brick columns and spandrels, and topped by a ceramic tile roof. The house is locally significant as one of the finest Spanish Mission style houses in West Helena.
The Helena Confederate Cemetery is located in the southwest corner of the Maple Hill Cemetery on Holly Street in Helena, Arkansas. It is a small section of the larger cemetery, under one acre in size, and is marked by two significant memorials: the Confederate Memorial and the memorial to Confederate Army General Patrick Cleburne, whose burial here is the only known place associated with his life. The Cleburne memorial is a marble shaft 15 feet (4.6 m) in height, topped by an urn with flames coming from its top. The Confederate Memorial is a marble depiction of a soldier, mounted on a 30-foot (9.1 m) granite shaft, surrounded by pyramids of cannonballs and inverted cannons. The cemetery has more than 100 marked graves, 15 of which are unidentified Confederate dead, and 23 are of those killed in the 1863 Battle of Helena.
The Helena Library and Museum is a historic building at 623 Pecan Street in Helena, Arkansas. Originally constructed in 1889 by the Women's Library Association to house a library for the city of Helena, it has also housed the county library, regional library and the county's museum.
The Keesee House is a historic house at 723 Arkansas Street in Helena, Arkansas. It is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, built in 1901 for Thomas Woodfin Keesee, the son of a local plantation owner. It is an excellent local example of transitional Queen Anne-Colonial Revival architecture, exhibiting the irregular gable projections, bays and tower of the Queen Anne, but with a restrained porch treatment with Ionic columns. The exterior is sheathed in a variety of clapboarding and decorative shingling, and there are wood panels with carved garland swags.
The Nelson House is a historic house at 303 St. Andrew's Terrace in West Helena, Arkansas. It is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame and brick structure, with a full-width front porch, and a rear single-story ell. The house has modest Colonial Revival styling, but is fundamentally an excellent local example of the American Foursquare architectural style. It was built c. 1915, and is one of a modest number of homes from that period to survive in West Helena.
The Jacob Trieber Federal Building, United States Post Office, and United States Court House is a historic government building in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. It is a Modern International style three-story building, its exterior finished in brick with limestone and granite trim. It was designed by Edward F. Brueggeman and Elmer A. Stuck & Associates, and built between 1959 and 1961. It is one of the city's few International style buildings, and has been relatively little altered since its construction.
