Giraffe-style native flagstone architecture is a distinctive feature in the Ozarks. It was a common construction method during the first half of the twentieth century. 

Alesha Cerny, Architectural Historian for the Southeast Region of the National Park Service, will be on the main Springfield campus of Missouri State University on Thursday, March 7, 2024 to give a talk about “giraffe-style” native flagstone architecture in the Ozarks. 

The event, which is free and open to all, will begin at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 7th in the Ozarks Room on the Third Level of Duane G. Meyer Library. Light refreshments will be served. Metered parking is available nearby in MSU Lot 19, as well as in BearPark South, the multi-story parking ramp. 

Cerny’s MA thesis, completed at the Savannah College of Art and Design, reported on a study of the architecture in Vilonia, Arkansas, on the southern edge of the Ozarks region.

The abstract to her thesis reads in part:

“Modest structures made of large stones proliferated in the rural towns of central Arkansas
and the Ozark Mountains region, during the 1930s and 1940s. The town of Vilonia, Arkansas, is
a prime example having a long history of stone structures built with distinctive regional
characteristics from as early as the 1920s to the present. This vernacular architecture peaked
during the 1940s after men became skilled in masonry construction from working on building
projects associated with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. These programs sought to
restore families back to a desired level of comfort through direct relief payments and public
works projects. Through these programs, the status of the vernacular or untrained local builder
was heightened to a new level.”