William A. Short built this house in 1904 with cotton money he no longer had by 1917. The house has had three other uses since he sold it.
Many places called "historic" are simply old. The William A. Short House at 317 Biscoe Street is the building you stay in at the Edwardian Inn. Its history is documented. It follows one man, his fortune, the loss of that fortune, and the rescue of the house. The building has stood through 122 years of Helena's history.
The Cotton Merchant
Short moved from Mobile, Alabama to Little Rock in 1885 to manage a branch of the Howell Cotton Company. Three years later he started his own firm, W. A. Short and Company. It did well. By the early 1900s he had branch offices in Pine Bluff, Brinkley, Newport, Cotton Plant, Clarendon, Forrest City, Holly Grove, Marianna, Memphis, and Osceola. He had built a regional cotton business himself.
In 1904, at the height of that success, he commissioned a house in Helena for himself and his wife, Sallie Baker Short. He hired Clem Brothers of Fordyce, the contractors who built a number of Helena's larger homes at the turn of the century. He spent $100,000. That is about $3.5 million in today's money. The style was Colonial Revival. It was not Victorian ornament or local building. It was the national style, and in 1904 it said something specific: we are American, we are prosperous, we are part of the mainstream. In post-Reconstruction Arkansas, a cotton merchant who chose Colonial Revival was making a claim about his place in the world.
The materials made the same claim. The first floor has 36 different types of wood, each species chosen on purpose. Quarter-sawn oak paneling lines the walls. There are nine ornate mantels, made by craftsmen in Chicago, 900 miles away. Short did not buy local work, because local was not the point. The semicircular porch runs across the whole front of the house. It was built to be seen from the street.
Thirteen Years
Short owned the house for thirteen years.
The cotton market collapsed in the 1910s, from the boll weevil and wartime disruption. Short lost his fortune faster than he had built it. By 1917 he was forced to sell the house. He had built it at the peak of the Delta cotton economy, and he sold it as that economy began its long decline.
What the House Became
The house's history after 1917 follows Helena's twentieth century. By the 1930s it was a funeral home. In the 1950s and 60s it was family apartments. In the late 1960s and early 70s it was Delta Haven, a rehabilitation center. After that it sat empty. The house that cost $100,000 in 1904 was abandoned.
Sonny Boy Williamson II started broadcasting King Biscuit Time from KFFA, two blocks away, in 1941. By then the Short House was already a funeral home and 37 years old. When Williamson died in Helena in 1965, the house was 61 years old and had changed uses three times. During the civil rights movement, the building was apartments. Through all of it, the frame, the woodwork, the nine Chicago mantels and the 36 kinds of wood on the first floor held up.
Twelve Investors
In the early 1980s, twelve investors bought the abandoned building for very little. They saw what the property assessors did not price. It was a sound, architecturally significant Colonial Revival house on a historic street, with most of its original woodwork intact. It could become a bed and breakfast.
They added private bathrooms to the existing rooms. They decorated each room on its own and gave each one a name. On March 3, 1984, they opened the Edwardian Inn.
In 1985, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
What You Are Staying In
The Edwardian Inn has been open for 42 years. The building has stood for 122. It is 37 years older than King Biscuit Time. It was already standing when the Delta blues was being played two blocks away on Cherry Street. The quarter-sawn oak paneling was milled before the Wright Brothers flew. The nine mantels were made in Chicago before cars were common.
The woodwork is original. It is the woodwork Short paid for in 1904. The porch is another story: it has been rebuilt more than once, and we are always working on it. The floor you walk on today is about 12 to 15 years old. Steve Norwood rebuilt it. Steve was on the crew that renovated the house in 1983, and there is hardly anything on the outside he has not touched since. He built the garden house on the south lawn and the deck outside room 8, at least three times. He also built the stage on Cherry Street where the King Biscuit Blues Festival plays. If you are lucky enough to catch him, ask about stairs and handrails and he will explain the math behind a perfect one. The brick steps up to the porch were rebuilt by Frank Clancy, a Helena brick mason, who now runs Biscuit Row BBQ with his wife, Karen. The rooms have been through everything Helena went through, and they are still here.
Many B&Bs say they are historic. Here are the facts for this one. Built 1904. Colonial Revival. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. A first floor in 36 species of wood. Nine mantels made in Chicago. A construction cost of $100,000 in 1904 dollars. Abandoned in the late twentieth century. Bought and reopened by twelve investors.
