Hurley home added to historic register

The Arch and Ola Hurley House in Tucumcari recently was designated to the National Register of Historic Places.

The designation for the century-old home became official on Jan. 3, according to an email Friday from the National Park Service, which administers the National Register program.

The home at 117 W. High St., a block-and-frame structure built in 1918 on a nearly half-acre lot, was noted as an excellent example of a Craftsman-style house in Tucumcari, according to the National Register nomination form.

"The Arch and Ola Hurley House maintains a high level of historic integrity because it has sustained few alterations in the years since it was constructed," the nomination form stated. "The house remains in its historic location and retains its historic setting of small, one- and two-story houses and the nearby courthouse. The house retains its historic design, materials and workmanship because the house continues to reflect the house Arch and Ola built in 1918."

A sunroom was added to the structure in 1950. Two newer garage buildings were non-contributing parts of the nomination.

Members of the Hurley family occupied the house for 68 years, until 1986.

Kathleen Kraft and her mother Ann Shallert owned the home from 1986 to 2019, which was then purchased by Peter Robinson and Mary Ann Parham, who remodeled the kitchen ceiling and converted to garage to a casita by replacing the garage door with French doors and upgraded the electrical system.

In 2022, they sold the home to Karyn Drum, who still owns it. Drum also prepared the National Register nomination with the assistance of the State Historic Preservation Office.

Though Arch Hurley helped create Conchas Lake, the Arch Hurley Conservancy District and the closed Princess Theatre, the home is not significant to those efforts, the nomination stated.

The Arch Hurley Conservancy District office building at 101 E. High St. in Tucumcari was listed to the National Register in 1994.

Hurley also built the Odeon Theatre in Tucumcari, which still operates today.

Drum, contacted by phone Friday, was unaware her home had been officially listed on the National Register.

"I'm super-excited," she said. "I worked so hard filling out all that documentation. It took me about a year."

She said Tucumcari native Laura Love helped research the history of the home and the Hurleys.

Drum said she was prompted to fill out the nomination petition because Hurley "was such a significant part of the community."

"And it's just a really cool house, too," she added. "The hardwood floors are beautiful, and it's got super-tall ceilings. It's full of arches. The doorknobs and everything are all original. It just hasn't been changed."

Arch Hurley, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1880, moved to Tucumcari in 1913 and opened the city's first movie theater, the H&H Theater, which later was renamed the Princess. He eventually owned a chain of theaters.

Hurley's training as a civil engineer became critical in his success in establishing an irrigation district in the region, which still provides water for ranchers and farmers throughout the region.

Hurley died in 1956 at age 76.

With the National Register designation, the Hurley home now is eligible for tax credits to aid in rehabilitation. Drum said she probably would use that to fix the home's windows.

"Some of the wood is kind of rotten on the outside in places," she said. "But it's still in pretty good shape."

Drum, who is an artist, plans to open by summer a gallery of her work in a back building of the home.