ROGERS — The historic building at 117 W. Walnut was built in 1898 and today is the home of Belli Arti Restaurant. John Myler, a prominent Rogers builder at the turn of the century, constructed the brick building with its decorative limestone trim around the windows and on the corners.

It looks today almost as it did when it was new. The next time you are downtown, study the beautiful and lasting masonry work that Myler created more than 111 years ago.

In January 1899, T.J.

Keller's hardware establishment was the first business to occupy the new store. It carried the famous line of John Deere buggies, cultivators and other farm equipment. Keller's also made the best harness that money and brains could produce according to an ad in the 1907 Business Men, Home-Seekers and Farmers Guide and Directory.

The next occupant of 117 was Charles Aufderheide, who established a furniture store and funeral home in the building. He sold his funeral home to A.D. Callison in 1912.

Callison was an innovator in the funeral business, and in 1917, he brought the first motorized hearse to Rogers. One of the prominent women of Rogers described the event: "Mr.

Callison bought an automobile hearse and really shocked the inhabitants by driving to the cemetery too fast (15 miles per hour).

Other new cars would follow the hearse and then came the slower moving horses and buggies with the indignant occupants choking and sputtering because of the churned up dust they had to take." (Vera Key, 1955 Benton County Pioneer)

Callison operated a paint, wallpaper and picture framing shop on the first floor, and the funeral home upstairs. An account in a March 17, 1921 newspaper noted, "The two-story building has been completely remodeled, upstairs and down, to meet the needs of the various departments. The undertaking department is on the second floor and includes a large and welllighted stock room for cas kets, a room for the work of embalming, a morgue room for the reception of bodies and a rest room." I presume that the rest room was for the living relatives and not for the deceased. Callison operated his funeral home in the building as Callison's Undertaking Company un til 1932, when he moved the funeral business to its present location at 408 W.

Walnut.

A.D. Callison kept his paint and wallpaper storein the building until the mid-1940s. Cy Carney Appliance moved into the building after Callison left and sold appliances, including the famous Maytag wringer washers, for about a decade.

In the mid-1960s, Marion Bunyard opened his Western Auto Associate Store at 117 W. Walnut.

Western Auto was an "L" shaped store with its front on Walnut and the service department on N. Second Street, directly behind the Sterling Store on the corner. In 1963, one of the prominent employees of Western Auto was Buddy Wright, who is today our city alderman and an official at the Maloney Ford dealership. Bunyard's Western Auto was here until the early 1980s. By 1983, Marion Bunyard had opened Bunyard's Furniture and Appliance Store at 111 N. Second Street.

After Western Auto vacated the building, it was the home of White's Auto Store in 1985. Since then this location has been thehome of several businesses including Tony C's Italian Restaurant and Cafe Santa Fe Mexican Restaurant.

From 2006 until today, 117 W. Walnut has been the home of the attractive Belle Arti Ristorante and Steak House, managed by Penny and Joe Gargano.

I pass the building daily that has been the home of so many businesses, but when I look at the historic building, I see the old Callison Paint Store and Undertaking Company. I imagine all of the people, some prominent and many ordinary, who were prepared for their final rest in this structure. Even today, at the front to the building, you can see the word, Callison, spelled out in the ancient floor tile in the entrance.

James Hales is a retired homebuilder and historian who has written two books about the history of Rogers. His latest book, The Fabulous 1960s in Rogers, Arkansas, chronicles the exciting changes that occurred in the decade of the 1960s.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 09/30/2009

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