Object description

The Henry Clay Mills House was a historic house at 425 North 15th Street in Van Buren, Arkansas. This modest frame house was built in 1892 by Henry Clay Mills, an African-American former slave turned businessman. Mills was born into slavery in 1847, and after the American Civil War worked for many years as a laborer on a plantation near Mulberry. He eventually developed a moving and shipping business in Van Buren, typifying advancement of African-Americans of the period from agricultural to non-agricultural economic opportunities.