Jones Memorial Methodist Church


The Jones Memorial Methodist Church is a historic church building at 400 East Main Street in Hartford, Arkansas. It is a T-shaped two story brick building, with a gabled roof and stone foundation. Its main facade has a Classical Revival appearance, with a gabled portico sheltering the main entrance, supported by six large Doric columns. Built in 1921, it is the only major example of the architectural style in the small city. The $25,000 cost of its construction was a burden on the congregation, and its mortgage was paid off in the 1930s by Dr. Elisha Baxter Jones, in whose honor the church was thereafter named. Part of its history includes conspiring with the faculty and administration of the local Hartford Public Schools to organize and carry out a book burning in the City of Hartford in the mid 1980s. It was later discovered that dozens of the schools library books had also been burned in the fire. Multiple students witnessed the faculty throwing state funded books into the flames. Parents later discovered that their minor children were coaxed into a burning of the Arts by the, then Methodist, upper administration of Hartford Public Schools, its faculty,
and The Methodist Church itself.
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.