Preservation in Mississippi
ELMalvaney
Vicksburg NMP: Other Monuments Worth Stopping For
Well, we’ve come the end of our week-long tour through Vicksburg National Military Park. If you’ve missed the earlier posts, you might want to start at the beginning. Seeing the 101: Vicksburg National Military Park People Monuments, or “Pardon me, General Grant!” Mississippi’s Monuments Small but Interesting Ohio Monuments There are many more interesting things … Continue reading
Vicksburg NMP: Small But Interesting Ohio Monuments
Since I was so wordy yesterday, today I’ll let the pictures do the talking. While the other states mostly erected a single large monument commemorating their soldiers’ sacrifices, Ohio chose a different route. According to the Park website, Rather than erect a single state memorial, Ohio chose to place a monument for each of the thirty-nine units that … Continue reading
Warren Port Commission Moves Again to Destroy Ceres
According to Alan Huffman’s blog, the Warren County Port Commission is on the warpath again in its ongoing quest to demolish the main house at Ceres Plantation. Read all about it here. Ceres Plantation, a rare surviving example of a pre-Civil War plantation house complex, is slated for demolition despite its 2011 listing by the … Continue reading
Vicksburg NMP: Mississippi’s Monuments
Apart from the large “person” monuments we looked at yesterday, the monuments that really catch the eye at Vicksburg National Military Park are the state memorials. The Park’s website lists the monuments, separated by which side of the war they were on, with Missouri’s one monument showing up in both the Confederate and Union lists: … Continue reading
Vicksburg NMP: People Monuments, or “Pardon Me, General Grant!”
Continuing in our week-long series of travels and observations in Vicksburg National Military Park . . . The vast majority of the people-centered monuments in the Vicksburg National Military Park are simple busts or bas reliefs of various important military leaders. These tend to be sprinkled around lining the park roads roughly around where they … Continue reading
Seeing the 101: Vicksburg National Military Park
Spring is here and it’s time to head out to see the world, or at least a little slice of Mississippi before the heat of summer comes in and crushes you. On that note, a couple weeks ago, just before the whole world turned green again, I took a drive through Vicksburg National Military Park … Continue reading
Water Valley Makes NYT
Congratulations to Water Valley, whose downtown revitalization and preservation efforts have made the New York Times, in “They Made Main Street Their Own: How Four Women Revived a Derelict Mississippi Town.”
Architect Harry North Austin: Never a Half-Way Man
A while ago, I ran a post in the Pictures Series about Jackson architect Harry North Austin. Thanks to a beautiful photograph preserved and passed down through one of his daughters and shared with us by granddaughter Olis Billings, we were able to catch a glimpse of the man behind buildings such as Ole Miss’ … Continue reading
Abandoned: Vaughan, Mississippi
Recently I decided to take the Vaughan exit off I-55 to see how this little hamlet was doing. It’s been a while since I was through, maybe 2004 or 2005, but even then it seemed like things were slipping away. Vaughan was never a big town–maybe it would have qualified as a “village” back when … Continue reading
Walt Grayson recognizes Poplar Hill
Congratulations to the folks at Poplar Hill School in Jefferson County, one of our 101 Mississippi Places to See Before You Die, for a nice story on Walt Grayson’s Looking Around Mississippi. Aired on Friday, March 2, the story interviews alumni of the school along with others who are working to preserve this two-room African American … Continue reading
Seeing the MissPres 101 Places and Asking Questions
Tom Freeland at the North Mississippi Commentor has jumped on the road to his old haunts in southwest Mississippi to see a good chunk of the sites on the recently published 101 Mississippi Places to See Before You Die. So on this Friday morning in early March that already feels kind of like late Spring, head … Continue reading
1, 2, 3, 4 . . . Count the Holes in the Hinds County Armory Roof!
You may recall a post from long ago called “Hinds County Armory Shamefully Neglected.” If you weren’t around then, this is a bit of what I said: Those of you who have visited the Mississippi State Fair might have noticed an exotic brick building with gothic arches off to the side near High Street in … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, June 1964: Gilfoy School of Nursing
The featured building in Mississippi Architect’s June 1964 issue was the Gilfoy Nursing School at Baptist Hospital in Jackson. In last week’s post about the endangered Rexall Drug Store on North State Street across from Baptist, I noted that the Overstreet firm, which designed the drug store, also designed a number of buildings and additions … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, June 1964: Who’s Building Is It?
In the June 1964 issue of the Mississippi Architect, editor Edward F. Neal picks up a similar theme to his editorial of May 1964, “The Language Barrier,” noting the disconnect between architects and their clients. In this issue, he re-prints a letter to the editor from a frustrated client whose architects wouldn’t build the colonial … Continue reading
“Everything Level, Toylike From Air”
We like to think that technology is advancing faster today than it ever has before. But the early to mid-twentieth century could give us a run for our money, showing possibly even more consequential change in the period 1900-1930. Today’s newspaper clipping, when compared with a post a while back, shows how rapid this change … Continue reading
Hints of Segregation Past
Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away I wrote a post about the layers of history we can see in our architecture by looking at the backs and sides of buildings. That post ”Where History Meets Architecture” was about the old covered stairway on the back facade of the old Paramount Theater in Clarksdale, … Continue reading
Dear Baptist Hospital: Please Save This Building!
A concerned reader passed along the discouraging news that the old Patterson-Bradford Rexall Drug Store on N. State Street in Jackson may soon fall victim to yet more Baptist Hospital expansion. I hope Baptist will re-consider: this building’s architecturally significance has been noted for at least the last 15 years and it could continue to … Continue reading
Two Videos to Start Your Week
JRGordon decided to take President’s Day off from the weekly news roundup, but luckily MissPreser Blake Wintory of Lakeport Plantation sent links to two YouTube videos (or are they called digital shorts nowdays?) that I think everyone will find worth watching. Recently P. Allen Smith of the PBS show P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home visited both Lakeport Plantation … Continue reading
The MissPres 101 Places Map!
Well, as usual it took me a little longer than I had promised, and I only got it done with help from reader and fellow blogger Tom Freeland, but here at long last is the Official MissPres 101 Places to See Before You Die Map. Since it’s Friday, feel free to spend some time wandering … Continue reading
To Be or Not To Be, That Was the Question
Three years and one day ago after a full day of painting on my house renovation project, I sat down at my computer and started a blog. I had never started a blog before. I thought it would be an interesting exercise, but I had no long-term vision for where it would go. To be … Continue reading
A Brief History of Headers
Today is technically the third anniversary of Preservation in Mississippi, but due to my own mistaken impression on the first year’s anniversary that February 9 was the big day, tomorrow will actually be the “Observed” date. In the meantime, as you’ll notice, I’ve changed the header for the blog, which happens every year on or around … Continue reading
Interesting Mississippi-related Blog Posts
If you can get past the title, the Curator of Shit blog has several interesting Mississipp-related posts, ranging from “The Glorious Evolution of Messeur Elisaeus von Seutter’s Pleasure Grounds at Ivy Cottage, Jackson, Mississippi,” to “A typical early 20th century African American urban street, Jackson, Mississippi,” to “Pre-FEMA Trailers, Thisildu, Hurricane of 1947, Mississippi.” To … Continue reading
Corinth Machinery Building, 1869-2012
As JRGordon noted in last week’s News Roundup, the long-abandoned and highly endangered Corinth Machinery Building, built in 1869, suffered a large partial collapse in that weekend’s heavy storms. As you might remember from a post back in January 2010, there was some movement to try to at least stabilize the building, but nothing ever … Continue reading
Slave Dwelling Project in Holly Springs
According to the Preserve Holy Springs and Marshall County Facebook page, Joe McGill of The Slave Dwelling Project will be spending the night in two Holly Springs slave quarters during Pilgrimage (April 13-15) and helping visitors understand these historic places. Mr. McGill, a historian with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and a Civil War … Continue reading
The Official 101 Mississippi Places to See Before You Die List
As I mentioned yesterday, due to my natural soft-hearted nature, our famous and infamous list of 101 Places is actually a list of 106 Places, but I make no apologies. It’s not the list I would have come up with on my own, but that’s the point of doing polls–to find out what other people … Continue reading
Trying to Make Sense of the 101 MissPres Places Poll
Today and tomorrow, we will finally, at long last and after much fretting, announce the list of 101 Mississippi Places To See Before You Die (shortened to 101 Places for convenience). For those of you who weren’t around from start to finish, here’s a short recounting of how we arrived here (for a longer version, … Continue reading
Two Photo Essays on Endangered Places
Check out these two recent photo essays on endangered historic places in Mississippi: “Decaying History” on the Modern Southerner blog, and “A beautiful dogtrot house, fading slowly away” on NMissCommentor.
Abandoned Mississippi: Port Gibson Oil Works
The abandoned plant of the Mississippi Cotton Oil Company wasn’t on the recent Port Gibson Holiday Home Tour, but as I was wandering about before the tours started, I was drawn to the place, just north of downtown, like a moth to the flame. I’ve always been intrigued by cotton seed oil mills–the strange shapes … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, May 1964: Gulde Methodist Church
A simple Modern rural church was the featured Mississippi building in the May 1964 issue of the Mississippi Architect. ——————————————————————– GULDE METHODIST CHURCH Rankin County, Miss. CLEMMER & CLARK, A.I.A. Architects Jackson, Miss. R.D. MOON Contractor Pelahatchie, Miss. THIS rural church serves a congregation of less than one hundred and is located near the town … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, May 1964: Speaking Architects’ Language
In his editorial for May 1964, Mississippi Architect editor and Jackson architect Edward F. Neal notes the language barrier between architects and clients. This is and probably always will be a problem with any kind of specialized field, and like doctors, some architects are better than others at translating their language into ours. Since this … Continue reading
Going Inside: St. Joseph Catholic Church and its Blue Glow
It’s a nice coincidence that in the same week as an update on Jackson’s First Christian Church we should look at the interior of Port Gibson’s St. Joseph Catholic Church. Built almost exactly 100 years apart, these two buildings might be supposed to have nothing in common. In fact, they share one characteristic, besides their Gothic … Continue reading
Some Things To Do This “Winter”
It’s that time of year again for Millsaps to offer its Community Enrichment Series, short courses geared toward the general public and for a small fee. In addition to courses as varied as portrait photography and belly dancing, they are offering a few classes again that appeal to history and architecture-minded folks. I’m a little … Continue reading
Is that a hole in First Christian?
Just before the New Year, MissPres reader “M” (who, I’m told, is a first cousin twice removed from James Bond’s “Q”), alerted us in a comment left on “Friends We Lost in 2011” that there appears to be a large leak or maybe even hole in the roof of Jackson’s First Christian Church. As you … Continue reading
Martin Luther King, Jr. in Philadelphia, Miss.
From the Downtown Philadelphia Historic District nomination, recounting the civil rights march led by Martin Luther King, Jr., in Philadelphia. Held on June 21, 1966, the march from Independence Quarters, a large black neighborhood west of the railroad, to the courthouse was meant to bring attention to the Schwerner, Chaney & Goodman murders: King began … Continue reading
When You Absolutely Positively Have to Know What’s a Volute?
Recently I took a second look at the sizable number of architectural dictionaries sitting on my shelves, most within easy reach arm’s length of my computer desk. While it may seem that I know just the right architectural term for every minuscule part of a building, in fact, I regularly pull my architectural mumbo-jumbo out … Continue reading
Round the Blogosphere 1-8-2012
As I was writing the date, I realized that if you add 8 and 12 you get 20, so I wanted to be sure to share that little bit of math nerdery with you this lovely Monday morning. JRGordon searched and searched for news this week, but apparently after the splurge of Christmas-week news, everyone … Continue reading
Going Inside: Port Gibson’s First Presbyterian
We’ve all heard about the Hand Pointing To Heaven that tops the steeple of Port Gibson’s First Presbyterian Church and most of have probably seen it while driving down Church Street, but the interior of the church is worth looking at too. I had a chance to get inside for the first time last month … Continue reading
Architects of Mississippi: William Stanton
Maybe you remember the post “From Charleston to Vicksburg With Love” from a while back about the connection between Vicksburg and Charleston, SC, namely the architect of Vicksburg’s Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity started his career in Charleston, with a number of high-quality churches and other commissions there. In that post, I mentioned the … Continue reading
2011 in review
I was sitting down to post the MissPres annual report for 2011 just before midnight, since my neighbors were shooting off fireworks over my house, and lo and behold, I found that WordPress has already prepared an annual report for me. Here’s an excerpt: In 2011, there were 275 new posts, growing the total archive of this … Continue reading
Books About The City
Check out Simon Jenkins’ recent “Five Best Books About The City” in the Wall Street Journal. It includes Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities, our very first Book Quotes series here on MissPres.
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