One of southwest Arkansas’s most memorable structures stood in downtown Arkadelphia for almost eighty years. Unfortunately, the Caddo Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1989.

In the early 1900s, the advent of the automobile brought major changes in transportation. With increases in numbers of vehicles and new roads, more people began traveling to—and through—Arkadelphia. In response to an increase in demand for business facilities, R.W. Huie constructed a two-story building on the half-block bounded by Caddo and Clinton streets. Designed for retail ventures on the first floor, the upper floor was to contain a hotel. Work began in 1912, and just over a year later the Caddo Hotel opened for business.

The modern hotel rose to prominence by the 1920s and proved to be very successful for a number of years. The building’s brick exterior was painted white in the mid-1930s and remained that color for the rest of its existence. The Caddo outlasted every other hotel with which it had competed in its early years.

But, the middle-to-latter part of the twentieth century brought changes for which the Caddo was not prepared. The hotel lacked adequate parking. And, while the Caddo once stood in the mainstream of traffic flow through Clark County, a new highway–Interstate 30–routed traffic away from downtown instead of to it. Then, in 1965, a new Holiday Inn was built in Caddo Valley, indicative of the changes in types of motels preferred by modern travelers. And, like many other towns, Arkadelphia’s economy experienced a shift—away from downtown. The Caddo Hotel’s café closed in 1970. Businesses came and went on the ground floor. The building experienced more and more vacancies.

Then, on the night of November 19, 1989, the Caddo Hotel burned to the ground. With its destruction, Arkadelphia and Clark County lost another landmark from a by-gone era.