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Parker Westbrook Award for Lifetime Achievement

Historic Washington Foundation

Named in honor of Preserve Arkansas’s founding president, the Parker Westbrook Award for Lifetime Achievement recognizes significant achievements in historic preservation over a period of years. The award may be presented to individuals, organizations, businesses, or public agencies whose activities may be of local, statewide, or national importance. The 2023 Parker Westbrook Award for Lifetime Achievement goes to the Historic Washington Foundation.

For sixty-five years, Historic Washington Foundation (formerly Pioneer Washington Restoration Foundation) has been a leader in organized preservation efforts in Arkansas. With its incorporation in 1958, it became the first historic preservation organization in the state. In addition, the Foundation has been directly involved in the preservation of more historic structures than any other preservation organization in Arkansas. Besides its direct preservation work, Historic Washington Foundation (HWF) was instrumental in having the Washington Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The Foundation also worked to create Old Washington Historic State Park (now Historic Washington State Park), which opened in 1973 to partner with HWF in preserving and interpreting the town, a partnership that remains strong today. In 1975, Parker Westbrook, a native of nearby Nashville, Arkansas, and an ardent preservationist, was elected to the Foundation board. He remained actively involved, eventually serving as volunteer executive director, for more than thirty years. Now, in recognition of its ground-breaking work in historic preservation in Arkansas, it is fitting for the organization he served to receive the Parker Westbrook Award.