New ground. New adventures.

Last time we visited, my young wife and I had just decided to purchase a Victorian cottage at 2107 South Broadway, built by a man named Fox for his family in 1898. It is now considered be quite a part of the “downtown” area of Little Rock. Back then, Mr. Fox’s employer, a Mr. Gans, accused the Fox family of “moving out into the country,” rather than building a home in town as would have any normal family.

Anyhow, we now wanted to own it. Oh, the bank didn’t want us to. Back then, they hated loaning money for homes in this area. Rumors were that somewhere, in the secret lairs of the banks’ deep caverns, they had big maps with red circles drawn around specific areas of town. The property was in such an area, and should have been untouchable. Two things worked for us, though.

First, the powers that be had decided long ago that South Broadway would be a commercial corridor from the Arkansas River to Roosevelt Avenue. The old houses would have to go. They added nothing to the potential commerce of the city. When commercial came, the properties would be valuable enough to absorb the paltry cost of the residences. If the property sold twice when commercial showed up, what the hell? Progress was what they called it.

Second. We were white.

White people were fleeing such neighborhoods, even fleeing cities that had such neighborhoods. But the couples who had been buying properties therein were working-class professionals and excellent at paying their mortgages. Further, the couples purchasing the properties wanted to live in them. They didn't seek to convert them to apartments, an act that sometimes created near-instant slums. So, these stupid kids would keep the area stable until the developers showed up with their deep pockets.

It was what we now call a "win-win." Back then we called it, "Play along. Get along."

Anyway, if commercial developers showed interest, the banks could pull the mortgages. They had threatened that before, both to induce sales, and to squelch protests over the demolishing of what the youngsters (laughingly in the eyes of prominent businessmen) called, “historic properties.”

It had worked. Commercial development was working its way north from Roosevelt. A block south of our property, the lower half of Broadway had transitioned to commercial. A used car dealership spread over the south half of the west side. The story was that thugs would show up at the house remaining on that portion of the block after midnight knocking on the door and asking if the owner wanted to sell. She was an elderly lady from an old Little Rock family and was beginning suffer the effects of old-age. They must have terrified her. She faced them off, but time was on their side, or so they thought.

That was life in the old days. The traffic counts on South Broadway overrode any love of history.

We were young and dumb and full of optimism. We didn’t care about all that. We just smiled and signed the papers, beginning the rip-roaring, and damndest, adventure a young married couple ever set sail on, and we had no idea what was coming.

Next: our first road bump.

None of our future neighbors
belonged to a country club. Should
that have told us something?