Save the A.M. Stickles Home

There are remarkable acts of community service and historic preservation occurring in Bowling Green—but few compare to our board member Jonathan Schwer’s remarkable salvation of the Stickles House.

Arndt Mathis Stickles was born in Patricksburg, Indiana, in 1872. He graduated from the University of Indiana in 1897, 1904, and 1923, when he achieved his PhD. Stickles obtained a second master’s degree in 1910 from Harvard University and taught there from 1909 to 1910.

In 1908, Dr. Henry Hardin Cherry invited him to become head of the history department at WKU—then known as Western Kentucky State Normal School—in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Stickles was one of WKU’s first faculty members, contributing to the academic community until his retirement in 1954.

At that time, Stickles’ 46 1⁄2 years of service was a national record for a professor serving at the same accredited institution of higher learning. He left a remarkably broad body of scholarship with particular emphasis on antebellum and federal period Kentucky history. He died in 1968—leaving his Bowling Green Landmark home to his son, James Channing Stickles—who continued to live there until shortly before his death at 98 years old in 2021.

That same year, our own Jonathan Schwer endeavored to and in fact succeeded in saving the Stickles House from demolition. He literally placed the house on wheels to move it to a new, safe location in another neighborhood.

We supported Jonathan then, and we need your help to continue to support him now. Please help us raise funds for Jonathan to restore this tremendously significant building. Click the donate button to contribute.