Carthage Historic Preservation, Inc.
Mailing Address:  P.O. Box 375 | Carthage, MO  64836
Phelps House:  1146  Grand Avenue, Carthage, MO
417.358.1776

Curtis Wright House, circa 1891

403 S. Macon

 

Just across the street from the Ground House once stood another Queen Anne gem: a 29-room mansion built by Curtis Wright (1844–1918) for his wife. Wright had amassed his fortune in the furniture industry and expanded into mining, eventually founding the Carthage Stone Company, which quarried the famed Carthage Marble.

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The Wright home welcomed many notable guests, including frontiersman and bison hunter William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, as well as Wright’s cousin, Harold Bell Wright, one of the most popular American novelists of the early 20th century.

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Despite strong community opposition, the deteriorating Wright mansion was purchased in 1984 and relocated to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where it became a tourist attraction. Its removal marked a significant cultural loss for Carthage; a parking lot now occupies the site where the grand house once stood.

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FUN FACT:  Curtis Wright was a distant cousin of the famed aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright.