14/09/2026
MCKEE HOUSE UPDATE #1
(and no, none of this is AI content, Facebook is wrong!)
If you’ve lived in Mena for more than 6 months, it’s very likely that you’ve driven by 1122 Janssen Ave. it’s the house on the lot that straddles Reeves and Janssen Ave right as the road splits coming into town from Reine Street. It had been for sale for a while, and after touring the house, it became clear that both the home and its existing owner were ready to start a new chapter.
Despite that many thought we were nuts, we still bought it. We had no idea what we were walking into, but we also had no idea just how interesting this house was when it came to the history of some of the people who used to live in Mena.
On September 29th, 1898, Josiah Claude McKee (J.C.) purchased the lot now known as 1122 Janssen for $75. J.C. was engaged to a woman named Lulu Copp, who came from a very wealthy family in Rogers. In an effort to appease Lulu and impress her high-minded parents, McKee spent nearly a year building a house that pointed directly to the center of the lot, with rooms that were each on exactly a 15-degree pitch to match the roads. McKee also hand-built a circular staircase in the middle of the home, with an entirely hand-carved hardwood railing.
With Lulu’s parents’ approval, J.C. and Lulu were married on December 25th, 1899 (Christmas Day!).
We found a 1914 fire insurance map from the Library of Congress (pic) which shows the original footprint of 1122 Janssen (At the time it was 1120 Janssen).
J.C. McKee was a carpenter, painter, and wallpaper hanger (pic). As such, many of the trim boards revealed some some pretty elaborate wallpaper behind them when we pulled them off the walls (pic). McKee was also the “relief” mail carrier, and would deliver mail when the primary mail carrier was sick.
During World War 1, McKee was too old to be a typical soldier, but we found him participating in the wartime effort as a civilian. In 1918, J. C. McKee left Mena and went to Camp Pike, Arkansas, for employment. While working there he suffered an accident involving a stepladder and badly injured/shattered his right heel. McKee’s Military service card lists him at 5’11”, with brown eyes and black hair (pic)
Unfortunately, J.C. and Lulu never had children (at least not any that I could find). Lulu died in 1937, and her grave is in Benton, AR - she was buried next to her parents (Not next to J.C.), which makes me wonder whether their marriage struggled, despite that there were no records of divorce.
J.C. remarried Maria Barnard McKee in 1942, then passed away in 1947 at age 73.
Maria passed away in 1955, leaving all of her belongings to the Methodist Church of Mena in her will. Maria’s brother contested the will, and the lawsuit made it all the way to the Arkansas Supreme Court. The Methodist Church won the lawsuit in the end. Maria’s will was honored, and all of her belongings, along with her home at 1010 Janssen Ave (down the street from 1122) were given to the Methodist Church, “for the purpose of educating youth to Christ.”
The McKee home had changed hands multiple times over the years, and was owned by some prominent figures in Mena, including Wingo Johnson, Mena’s County Judge from 1985 through 1990.
Armed of all this knowledge, it felt like we were given a great privilege to be “handed the baton” on a home filled with so much Mena history, and we wanted to restore this home properly. The original foundation from 1899 was still in place, which consisted solely of crumbling rocks only present in the corners of each wall. Some of the rumors we’ve heard about this home were that the house was slightly “moved” by the 2009 tornado. We believe these rumors to be true, as some of the floor joists and rocks had shifted (pic), and one floor joist in particular was found bent sideways, laying entirely on its side.
Over the past few months, we meticulously dug and poured concrete footings, and added block underneath each exterior wall, matching that same 15-degree pitch that McKee laid out back in 1899. We installed new plumbing last week, and leveled the gravel inside the home’s new footprint.
If you’ve made it this far, then that means you’re just as interested by all of this as we are. Therefore, I’d like to petition you - we are pouring the concrete slab foundation tomorrow, and we would love your prayers for an easy pour, solid cure, and the completion of a new foundation which we believe will allow J.C. McKee’s House to last another 127 years.
