Fulton man completes hand-made wall six years in making

Linda and Eddie Kronk stand next to the Cedar Oaks sign and dry-stacked stone wall along their property off County Road 305. Over the past six years, Eddie Kronk has built the quarter-mile partition, similar to those found in Europe.
Linda and Eddie Kronk stand next to the Cedar Oaks sign and dry-stacked stone wall along their property off County Road 305. Over the past six years, Eddie Kronk has built the quarter-mile partition, similar to those found in Europe.

Eddie Kronk is well-known for his long tenure as a roofer and construction worker in Fulton, but rocks were never his favorite building material.

"I used to hate rock," said Kronk. "We were raised on an old creek bottom barn, and we would pick up rock and pick up rock and pick up rock. But then I've seen a lot of nice rock fireplaces and I built my own, and the idea came from there."

That idea was to move on from the stone fireplace he added to his hand-built home off of Cedar Oaks Drive and begin building a rock wall partitioning his property from County Road 305. The result is a nearly quarter-mile dry-stack wall, over three feet tall at its highest, that Kronk built by hand over the course of about six years. He completed the wall this July.

The wall runs along Kronk's property line and was built from old discarded quarry rock from a friend's property in Hams Prairie, without the use of mortar. Such a building technique is popular for walls that can be found on small farms in western Europe.

To help the tornado-stricken people of Dumas and surroundings, donations can be made to the Delta Area Disaster Relief Fund, care of the Delta Area Community Foundation, P.O. Box 894, Dumas, AR, 71639, or through the Arkansas Community Foundation, 700 S. Rock St., Little Rock, AR, 72202.