Preservation in Mississippi
ELMalvaney
Sometimes It Is About Magnolias
This Memorial Day weekend, I hope you’ll have a chance to get out and smell the magnolias whether in your own yard or your neighbor’s. Take a blossom to the cemetery and put it on the grave of a soldier. Sit on your porch, turn off your cell phone, read a book, take a nap, … Continue reading
Jackson’s Lakewood Cemetery: Mississippi AIA Founding Generation’s Final Resting Place
It took me only two trips to Jackson’s Lakewood Cemetery–way out on West Capitol after it turns into Clinton Boulevard–to figure out that a significant number of our founding generation of professional architects had been laid to rest there. Overstreet, Naef, Malvaney, Canizaro, Spain, even Lindsley, who was living in Ocean Springs when he died … Continue reading
Where Have All the Roof Signs Gone?
My little postcard collection continues to grow, although more slowly now that you can’t get even a really boring common postcard on eBay for less than three or four dollars. One thing I started to notice was the prevalence of rooftop signs announcing businesses and welcoming visitors to larger cities in the state. I’ve always … Continue reading
1000
Congratulations to Preservation in Mississippi and the MissPres universe for sticking around for this, the 1000th post :-)
Which Preservation Organization?
In case you’ve missed it, a fairly robust conversation has sprung up in the comments to Monday’s discouraging post about Ceres Plantation and its destruction-minded owners, the Warren County Port Commission. In addition to comments about the irrationality of the whole case, some have noted that this seems to be one of several instances recently … Continue reading
Warren County Port Commission spending $29,000 to demolish . . . uh . . . “recycle” Ceres
Now that so many local newspapers have moved to an online subscription system, we rely on readers from around the state who subscribe to the print editions to let us know of important preservation issues in their neck of the woods. Last week, in case you missed it, Vicksburger Charles Bell sent us this clipping … Continue reading
History of Art in Mississippi: Churches (II)
Finally at long last we are at the end of the Architecture chapter in History of Art in Mississippi, published in 1929. In addition to this chapter, several other chapters concentrate on the state’s historic buildings, including two chapters on Historic Homes. As the authors note, “The Art of Mississippi before the Civil War was … Continue reading
History of Art in MS: Churches (I)
Well, this is embarrassing. In October 2010 I started a Book Quotes series from the valuable little book History of Art in Mississippi, published in 1929. After a week, I hadn’t made it through the chapter titled Architecture, and I promised to finish with a few extra single posts. As you know,the best laid plans … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, July 1964: Amory Middle School
The July 1964 edition of Mississippi Architect skips the editorial in favor of a notice about the AIA providing a speaker’s bureau to interested groups. Then it jumps straight to its highlighted Mississippi building, Amory Middle School, designed by Jackson (and Fondren neighborhood) architects Biggs, Weir, Chandler, Neal & Chastain. I’ve heard that this was … Continue reading
A Few Preservation Month Activities Before It Gets REALLY Hot
As you all no doubt know, May is Preservation Month. It is also Mother’s Day, and count this as fair warning to make your arrangements and avoid getting the infamous Mother’s guilt trip. But I digress. Below is a non-comprehensive list of activities planned for Preservation Month, and if you know of something going on … Continue reading
Going Inside: First National Bank, Jackson
I can be pretty bold about taking pictures of historic buildings or just any building that I consider architecturally impressive, but one place I’ve never even tried to take a picture of is the inside of my bank, Trustmark Bank in downtown Jackson. Originally known as First National Bank, the building was one of several … Continue reading
Wanted: Mississippi NHL Photos
The National Park Service has announced its annual National Historic Landmark photography contest on Flickr for 2012. For all you shutterbugs out there in MissPres territory, it’s a great time of year to get out and capture the essence of some of our most historic places. Here’s the announcement on the NHL Flickr site: Are … Continue reading
Rural Studio Tour in WSJ
The Wall Street Journal’s article “Avant-Garde in Alabama” recognizes the work of Auburn’s Rural Studio in western Alabama. Samuel “Sambo” Mockbee, who founded the Rural Studio, was a Mississippian and had a practice here before Auburn drew him back to teach.
Architectural Twins: Vicksburg’s Mystery Mission-Style Bungalows
I love driving in the southern neighborhoods of Vicksburg, along Cherry and Drummond streets especially. The early twentieth century houses are stunning–some of the highest quality in the state in my opinion. The thing about driving a neighborhood instead of walking it is that you often miss houses on one side of the street because … Continue reading
New Mississippi Preservationist Extraordinaire!
I fully intended to pronounce the winner of last week’s Name This Place Contest: The Doors edition on Friday evening while it was fresh on everyone’s mind. But first the siren song of crystal clear Spring weather called me outside and convinced me to unplug from the internet. And then Saturday, truth be told, I … Continue reading
Name This Place 9.5.1
We’ve reached the final innings of this week’s Name This Place contest. Harry Caray has sung Take Me Out to the Ballgame, but there’s still game to be played. Yesterday, gstone grabbed the first post of the day, Lexington’s Asia Missionary Baptist Church. Then Thomas swooped in to take the second post, the 1964 Sears … Continue reading
Name This Place 9.4.2
This is my knuckleball for the week. Hint: These doors have been on MissPres before.
Name This Place 9.4.1
New MissPreser Thomas grabbed the lead in this week’s Name This Place contest, correctly identifying the doors at both St. John’s Episcopal in Ocean Springs and the back entrance at Rosalie. For a while I thought I might have stumped everyone on St. John’s but my evil plot was foiled again! There’s still two days … Continue reading
Name This Place 9.3.1
The Name This Place contest heated up yesterday. The last post of the day, Jacinto Courthouse, which is on the 101 Places list, turned out to be the stumper for the day, with a late-night entry by Belinda winning the prize. Here’s a recap of the places and the points earned: Name This Place 9.2.1–Central … Continue reading
Name This Place 9.2.1
In yesterday’s exciting and confusing Name This Place, Suzassippi, aka Ms. Early Bird, grabbed a bonus point for correctly identifying Longwood in her 4:55 AM answer to the first-ever pre-dawn Name This Place post. Today, I promise not to screw up the order of posts (crossing my fingers). Cindy Hornsby, better known as Purvis’ Rambling … Continue reading
Name This Place IX: The Doors Edition
It’s been a long while since our last Name This Place contest, since last July when JRGordon took over, to be exact. For those of you who are new around these parts, Name This Places contests are usually a week-long festival for eagle-eyed Mississippi preservationists, where the person who correctly identifies the most buildings wins the … Continue reading
Cleveland’s Grover Hotel Goes Condo
Visitors to downtown Cleveland in the past decade or so might have noticed the small town’s lone “skyscraper,” the old five-story Grover Hotel, standing vacant. The Grover and its minimal Mission style has been a fixture in Cleveland’s skyline since it opened in 1926, as shown in this undated postcard from the Cooper Postcard Collection. … Continue reading
Bailey School Tan and Clean
If you’ve had occasion to drive down North State Street in Jackson in the past month you might have noticed that Bailey Junior High School (now Bailey Magnet School) is looking more tan than it has in recent years. For a while now, Bailey’s poured concrete exterior has been looking, well, a little shabby and … Continue reading
Mississippi Unbuilt: 1897 New Capitol
Back in the 1890s, as we’ve shown in articles and other comments from the period, Mississippi’s capitol, now known as the Old Capitol, was in serious disrepair and considered structurally unsound. Senators dithered about whether to vacate the building for fear the roof might fall in on them. Into the breach stepped architects from all … Continue reading
Lamar County Courthouse Update
The Purvis-based blog “Ramblings of the Diva” has been following the progress of the Lamar County Courthouse renovation project. Check out her updates: Lamar County Courthouse Part I, Lamar County Courthouse, Part 2, Lamar County Courthouse, Part III
Stepping on Meridian in Itta Bena
Maybe you remember the post from last year, “Stepping on Jackson, MS in NOLA” where I showed evidence of Jackson’s Harper Foundry in New Orleans in the form of utility covers on the sidewalk. I’ve continued to make a habit of looking down while walking around urbanized areas, most recently at Mississippi Valley State University … Continue reading
Round the Blogosphere 3-29-2012
Time for a rare almost mid-week, not-quite Friday roundup of interesting blog posts. Our Mississippi bloggers have been taking advantage of the nice weather lately to get out and peek into corners and out of the way places, and I wanted to bring some of their posts to your attention before they got away from … Continue reading
Abandoned Mississippi: Vicksburg’s Mercy Hospital
Standing on a two-block parcel on a high hill overlooking Grove Street, the old Mercy Hospital’s blue tile front wall still beckons drivers off of the busy Clay Street thoroughfare. But the massive building is no longer a hive of activity, instead walled off from the community it once served by a high fence with … Continue reading
Before and After: Meridian’s Merrehope
Most of us know of Meridian’s National Register-listed museum house Merrehope. Today’s Before and After is actually an After and Before, showing what Merrehope looked like in the 1880s and before the major renovation and additions of the turn of the 20th century. According to the National Register nomination and the Merrehope website, this 1880s … Continue reading
Yazoo City’s Delta National Bank and Its Place in American Architectural History
A while back I stumbled onto a website called “Defining Downtown at Mid-Century: The Architecture of the Bank Building & Equipment Corporation of America.” A part of the Recent Past Network, the site aims to bring attention to the thousands of bank buildings constructed in downtowns around the country by the Bank Building & Equipment … Continue reading
Recent Comments