The Nash-Reid-Hill House

In my day job as a cultural resource consultant, I work every day with the eligibility criteria for the National Register of Historic Places. The National Register is not just a list, but a tool for historic preservation, as properties affected by projects must meet the eligibility criteria for protection under the National Historic Preservation Act.

While back in Jonesboro, AR a few weeks ago I stopped by the old family home to take some pictures. I had always liked the house and had been there many times while growing up to visit my great aunt Ruth who lived there.

It was a big thrill for me when I saw this plaque by the front door and learned that my cousin Clifford Toney, who inherited the house, had had it nominated for the National Register and that it had been accepted. It is on the Register as the Nash-Reid-Hill House. The nomination says that it was significant for "its association with the Nash family, prominent in the pharmaceutical business as far back as 1875, and who played an important role in the field of medicine in pre-World War II Jonesboro." It is also significant as an exemplar of the Queen Anne style of architecture.

My great-great grandfather Travis Nash (1852-1919) made a good deal of money manufacturing patent medicines. Prominent among them was Nash's Chill Tonic, a nasty-tasting quinine-based potion that my father remembers being dosed with in the 1930s. The chill tonic is a reminder that malaria and yellow fever were fairly recently still endemic in many parts of the country - a fact that seems to have fallen into the memory hole. Travis Nash built the house in 1898.

This picture was taken out back of it in 1905. The woman sitting on the porch is my great-grandmother Flora Nash Reid (1878-1940), Travis' daughter. She was recently widowed, as her husband Augustus Reid (1876-1904) had died of tuberculosis the previous year. She never re-married and inherited the house when her father died. She was a pharmacist, and owned and managed Reid's Drug Store that she had established with her husband until her death.

The little boy on the porch next to her is her son, my grandfather, Travis Reid (1900-1979). He has a bandage on his left foot and I wonder what sort of accident he had. The little girl is his sister, my great aunt Ruth Reid (Hill) (1902-1991). The other woman, baby, and little boy (love that kiddie car!) are friends from the Ellis family.

When Flora died, my grandfather inherited the drug store and Aunt Ruth got the house. Her grandson, my cousin Clifford, recently sold it and it is being well-maintained by the new owners.