Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 12/02/98
SUMMARY
An American Foursquare with a Craftsman-style porch, the Chester E. Bush House anchors the south end of the "Bush Block," comprised of the four houses on the west side of the 1500 block of Ringo Street. Although the house has been altered, it retains much of its original form and detail. In fact, despite its alterations, the Chester E. Bush House has some of the richest decorative detail of all of the houses in the Bush Block.
Built about 1917 for Chester E. Bush, eldest son of John E. Bush, co-founder of the Mosaic Templars of America, this house is the only one in the so-called Bush Block that still is owned and occupied by a member of the Bush family. Its long association with the prominent Bush family is the main factor in the Chester E. Bush House’s significance.
S. E. Wiggins, a black contractor, is believed to have built this house for Chester E. Bush and his wife, Ursuline, about 1917. It was one of the first two houses in the "Bush Block."
Chester E. Bush was the eldest son of John E. and Cora Bush. His mother was the daughter of Solomon Winfrey, a leader in Little Rock’s antebellum black community. His father had co-founded the Mosaic Templars of America in the 1880s for the purpose of providing services-including insurance, loans, and medical care-that otherwise were difficult for African Americans to obtain. Headquartered in Little Rock, the Mosaic Templars eventually boasted 80,000 dues-paying members in twenty-six states, Central and South America, the Canal Zone, and the West Indies.
Born in 1886, Chester Bush attended public schools in Little Rock and Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. When he returned to Little Rock, he began his career with the Mosaic Templars as editor and manager of the organization’s official publication, the Mosaic Guide. Later he was promoted to secretary-treasurer of the "Monument Department," and after his father’s death in 1916, he assumed the organization’s top position, National Grand Scribe and Treasurer. Shortly after that, he had the new home at 1524 Ringo Street built for his family.
Just a few years later, Chester Bush suffered a stroke that led to his death in 1924 at the age of thirty-eight. His obituary noted that in addition to his work for the Mosaic Templars, he had been a founder of the black YMCA in Little Rock and a member of First Missionary Baptist Church. He was survived by both his mother and his wife, as well as three children, a sister, and a brother (Aldridge, who then became Mosaic Templars National Grand Scribe and Treasurer and built the Bush-Dubisson House at 1500 Ringo Street).
Chester Bush’s widow, Ursaline, remained at 1524 Ringo Street until her death in 1950, when the house was inherited by her son, John E. Bush, III, and daughter, Clothilde Bush. (John E. Bush, Jr., the son of the Mosaic Templars’ co-founder and brother of Chester E. Bush, died when he was only fifteen. Chester Bush kept the name in use by giving it to his son, John E. Bush, III.) After remodeling the house to create a living unit on each floor, John E. Bush, III and his wife, Alice Saville Bush, occupied the first floor with their three children. Clothilde Bush lived upstairs. Mrs. Alice Bush still owns the house and lives in the ground-floor unit created by the remodeling project.
Both the 1950s remodeling and the more recent application of steel siding by Mrs. Bush are overshadowed by the importance of the Bush family and its uninterrupted association with the house for more than eighty years.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock), 19 November 1924.
Bush, Alice Saville. Little Rock, Arkansas. Interview, 3 June 1998.
Insurance Maps of Little Rock, Arkansas. Vol. I. New York: Sanborn Map Co., 1939.
Little Rock City Directories: 1917 through 1953.