The Tharp House, built in 1904 on N. West Avenue, was added to the National Register of Historic Places a century later.
Moses and Allie Tharp, when first married in 1870, lived at her family’s home on Old Farmington Road. It is still standing but has been listed as endangered.
They moved into Fayetteville about 1904 after having a new home built on West Avenue for their family, which by that time was up to 10 children, although some were already on their own by that time, among the children living at the West Avenue house were daughters Maggie, Mary and Mattie and sons John and Mark.
The house does show up on the 1908 Sanborn Insurance map in its current configuration.
The father and several sons worked in jobs related to transportation: Moses, the U.S. mail contractor in Fayetteville, also worked as a drayman and hackman; Mark was a hired hand at the Ozark Wagon Works; and John was a truckman.
The first house south was the Cooper House
Text of Nomination: Built in 1904 for the Moses Tharp Family, the Queen Anne home at 15 North West Avenue in Fayetteville, is an excellent example of the Queen Anne style popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a result, it is being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C with local significance.
In 1870, Moses Tharp, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, married Alla Jane Thomas and moved to her family farm on Old Farmington Road outside Fayetteville. When the couple grew old, Moses and Alla Jane decided to move to town. According to family tradition, the couple had the Tharp House constructed in 1904.
A different house seems to be represented on the Fayetteville Sanborn Insurance Company map dated June 1904, but it is possible that the house was constructed during the second half of 1904. The 1904 Fayetteville business directory and newspaper accounts support this conclusion. The Tharp House is clearly represented on the July 1908 Sanborn Insurance map. In spite of his advanced age (65 in 1904), Moses Tharp continued to work.
He constructed an urban farmstead on the place, including sheds, a shelter for his livestock, and a garden. Moses made a living by hitching up his horses to a wagon and taking it to the nearby train station where he picked up and delivered freight and passengers. Indeed, railroad activities dominated the life of the Tharp House and its working-class neighborhood, where Frisco brakemen, baggagemen, and firemen made their homes.
There was a boarding house for railroad workers next door to the south. The tracks of the shortline Pacific & Greater Eastern were contiguous to the west. Additionally, rail-related enterprises (cooper shop, ice house, wholesalers, warehouses) filled the quarter-mile to the north, between the Tharp House and the Frisco station.
