2025.03.20 THROW BACK THURSDAY - "Q" STREET AND THE PARKINS
THROW BACK THURSDAY - "Q" STREET AND THE PARKINS
PLUS CLASS NEWS
“Avenue Q” is a play which opened on Broadway in 2003, won the Tony award for best musical, and endured for over 2500 performances.
Its lead character, a recent college graduate, finally finds a home he can afford on Avenue Q in New York City. Wondering about his purpose
in life, he takes advice from his eccentric neighbors. During his adventures with his new Avenue Q friends, he discovers the true meaning of
friendship and develops his own sense of purpose. The Heights neighborhood of Little Rock once had a “Q” Street. It was a little less eccentric
than its namesake New York community, but it was full of young people starting their lives and following their dreams. Neighbors took in the
breezes in porch swings and strolled across the street to visit with each other. One such family were the Parkins - Harry and Virginia, owners
of a printing company, and their two children Jane and Carol. Jane Parkin, who lived her earliest years on “Q” Street, remembers sitting on her
front steps reading the license plates of the twenty or so cars which might “slowly amble by” in an hour’s time, hoping to spot an out-of-state
plate. Jane describes her "Q" Street neighborhood of the late 1930s and 1940s as “a place where the neighbors knew you and you knew them.
You couldn’t get away with anything. It was just wonderful!” Something happened along the way to drastically change not only the name of
“Q” Street, but also to alter its character from a sleepy little neighborhood street between “P” and “R”. “Q” Street became Cantrell Road/
Highway 10, now one of our busiest thoroughfares! “Q” first appeared in the 1917 city directory as a short dead-end road extending west
from Kavanaugh to Pierce. The first houses were two wood frame bungalows built about 1924, and by 1930 “Q”had thirteen cottages,
handsomely designed in Craftsman and English Revival styles. The man who changed “Q” forever, was Deadrick Cantrell, a partner in the
Rose Law Firm and an early president of Little Rock Country Club. Cantrell recognized in the early 1920s that from downtown there was only
one reliable road to his club and to the developing Heights neighborhood where he lived - Prospect Avenue (now Kavanaugh Blvd), and it
was “bumper to bumper” streetcars, automobiles and horse-drawn wagons. Mr. Cantrell envisioned and championed a second route to the
Heights, up what is now known as Cantrell Hill. He encouraged Little Rock Country Club to join Heights land developers and the municipal
government in funding the project. After removal of several thousand tons of rock, the two-laned road up Cantrell Hill opened in 1931.
By the early 1940s "Q" was renamed Cantrell and in 1960, Cantrell was widened to four lanes after a bitter fight by owners of the “Q” Street
bungalows. Today over 22,000 cars a day travel this route. Despite the neighborhood's disruption by traffic planners, most of the historic
homes of Little Rock's “Avenue Q” remain, with interesting architectural features intact. Many current residents make the best of the situation,
with ample rear yards serving as entryways from the alleys behind the homes. Jane Parkin McMullin, the little girl who read the plates
of cars moving slowly by as a child, lives a few blocks away, after a 30 year career as one of our state’s first female stockbrokers.
The Parkin home today
Thanks for a great story about one of the Central High Classmates Jim Pfeifer!
1956 CLASS NEWS
Joan Raines Wright McMurry
After a long battle with Parkinson's disease, we sadly announce the passing of our dear mother, Joan Raines Wright McMurry, age 87, of Brentwood, Tenn., formerly of Hot Springs Village, Ark., on March 11, 2025. She was born January 3, 1938, in Little Rock, Ark., to Lawrence L. and Finnie D. (Winders) Raines. She graduated from Central High School, and retired from Keith-Smith Company as Administrative Assistant at the age of 70. She was an active member of Barcelona Road Baptist Church in Hot Springs Village, Ark., where she also served on the Ladies Auxiliary of the Gideons for the Hot Springs Village Camp. She is preceded in death by her parents, Lawrence L. and Finnie D. Raines; her husband of 33 years, Bennett R. Wright, Sr.; and her husband of 13 years, Richard A. McMurry. She is survived by her loving daughter, Michelle (Terry) Lawrence, of Brentwood, Tenn.; grandchildren, Chris (Nicole) Johnson and Jeff (Andrea) Lawrence; great-grandchildren, Emma Johnson, Lillian Johnson, Tyler Lawrence, and Evie Lawrence; loving son, Bennett R. Wright, Jr., of Hot Springs, Ark.; grandchild, Meghan (Chris) Dixon; great-grandchildren, Jodi, Tegan, and Bailee Gentry, Zoey and Cam Dixon; and great-great-grandchild, Grey Shaw; loving stepdaughter, Diane Faust, of Maumelle, Ark.; step-granddaughter, Ashley (Christopher) Johnston; step great-grandchildren, Grayson and Cohen Johnston, of Little Rock; loving step-grandsons, Thomas L. Carter and John (Christie) Carter; step-great-grandchildren, Courtney and Jennifer Carter, of South Carolina. Viewing and visitation will be held, at Caruth Village Funeral Home in Hot Springs, Ark., from 5-7 p.m., on March 21, 2025. Celebration of Life service for Joan and Richard (who passed December 1, 2024), will be held at 11 a.m. on March 22, 2025, at Barcelona Road Baptist Church in Hot Springs Village, Ark. Interment will follow at Pinecrest Memorial Park in Alexander, Ark. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Alzheimer's Association, or a charity of your choice. An online guestbook is available at: AustinFuneralService.com. 615-377-0775.
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Look fellas, we can't help it if we're always right!!!!! By now, surely you know that!!!!
HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!!!!!!
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ML