Preservation in Mississippi
Architectural Research
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
Molitor’s Mississippi: February 11, 1954
This week we are following Architectural Photographer Joseph Molitor on the 58th anniversary of his 1954 trip. Today is the last day of our three-blog-postings trip through Mississippi with Mr. Molitor. According to Columbia University’s Avery Library Archive, by Thursday February 11, 1954 he had just six buildings left to photograph in Jackson. Over a … Continue reading
Molitor’s Mississippi: February 8-10, 1954
This week we are following Architectural Photographer Joseph Molitor on the 58th anniversary of his 1954 trip to Mississippi. Molitor’s collection of photos, now at the Columbia University Avery Library in New York, forms an important documentary of what the architectural profession thought were the most important buildings of the post-World War II period. Picking … Continue reading
Molitor’s Mississippi: February 3, 1954
You may remember about this time last year, how we followed the 1952 footsteps of architectural photographer Joseph Molitor on the 59th anniversary of his first professional trip through Mississippi. As a reminder, here’s a little background about Molitor from the first MissPres post about him: Originally trained as an architect, Molitor’s career as a photographer … Continue reading
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Corbel
This is our third MissPres Architectural Word of the Week. If you missed any of the earlier posts, this series was spawned by Malvaney’s post about architectural dictionaries. Our past two words have been Abacus and Bracket. Have you been keeping an eye out for either element or trying to slip the words into everyday … Continue reading
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Bracket
This is our second MissPres Architectural Word of the Week. If you missed out on our first post, this series was spawned by Malvaney’s post about architectural dictionaries. I thought it would be fun to have a bi-weekly post that features a different architectural word that relates to a building here in Mississippi. I hope … Continue reading
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
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
First Ever MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Abacus
How many times have you looked at a building and said “What is that thing called? The one thingy above the dew-dad, next to the whats it.” Well if you’re me the answer is a lot! So after reading Malvaney’s post on architectural dictionaries, I thought it would be fun to have a bi-weekly post … 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
National Register 2011–Historic Districts
As you know, National Register listings can be either individual places, as shown in yesterday’s post, or larger groupings of buildings known as historic districts. Historic districts can be as small as a handful of houses in a rural community or as large as a dense urban neighborhood (as dense and as urban as Mississippi … Continue reading
National Register 2011–Individual Listings
As in previous years, we’re breaking our National Register of Historic Places listings for 2011 into two separate posts to avoid piling on and to allow you time to read through the summaries and ponder. Some of these listings have been covered in various News Roundups throughout the year, but I always like to have … Continue reading
Auld Lang Syne: Friends We Lost in 2011
As is traditional in this quiet week after Christmas and before New Years, we look back at the year and recount our wins and losses. We usually start with the “sad list” of buildings who lost their battle against time in 2011. This year’s losses seem pretty significant to me, with a number of recognized … Continue reading
A Few of JRGordon’s Favorite Things
Before taking us through the annual “Year in Review” posts, Malvaney asked some of us regular contributors about our favorite posts of the year. One of my favorites was the Friday Malvaney did the “Where Have All The Buzzards Gone?” post back in September. It had been a pretty typical MissPres week post-wise: the news … Continue reading
A Few of Thomas Rosell’s Favorite Things
This Christmas week, the MissPres authors are pulling out some of their favorite posts and re-packaging them with our comments about why they’re our favorites. One of my all time favorite posts is the series regarding the book How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand. The series has a lot to like, both good subject matter … Continue reading
The Cornerstones of Port Gibson
Y’all know how I love to find a cornerstone on a building–even new buildings. They are gifts that hand down essential knowledge to passersby about when a building came to be and who had a hand in bringing it from dream to reality. So if one cornerstone can make me so happy, imagine what two, … Continue reading
Port Gibson Holiday Home Tour
Last Saturday I got out of Jackson, avoiding the maddening Christmas shopping traffic, and headed down southwest to Port Gibson. I usually take Highway 18 through Raymond, Utica, and Carpenter and through the steel truss bridge that spans Bayou Pierre. But Saturday I took a different route, possibly for the first time, heading west on … Continue reading
“The view from the roof of the building is magnificent in every direction”
Vicksburgers were especially proud of their 8-story skyscraper–the tallest building in the state when it was finished in 1907–and these images prove that they wanted to share their urbanity and modernity with the outside world. Continue reading
Free Webinar on Classical Architecture
Restore Media is offering a free webinar on Classical Architecture! It focuses on the differences between Georgian and Federal style interiors and uses examples from rooms in the Winterthur Museum collection. The webinar lasts one hour and is available on demand, so you can pause it and take notes or fix another glass of tea. … Continue reading
Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Vicksburg
My mother was from a large Vicksburg family, and for that reason, relatives’ tales of the trolleys were standard and frequent. As a child, my mother rode the streetcar to school and back each day, and my uncle soaped the tracks on the hill passing the Bijou Theater many a summer night! Continue reading
The Montross Metal Shingle Co. asks “Are you interested in Roofing?”
“Are you interested in Roofing?” Apparently at the turn of the 20th century an unknown Biloxi builder was, as Montross Metal Shingles are featured prominently on several Biloxi structures. While many companies produced a pressed metal shingle the Montross Metal Shingle Co. held many of the patents on the patterns and production methods of some … Continue reading
Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Summit-McComb
Mississippi’s streetcar lines included a small operation in the McComb area. A letter from Mr. C.H. Douglas, mayor of McComb, November 25, 1960, states that streetcars operated between McComb and Godbold’s Wells, located east of Summit. Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, April 1964: Howard Memorial Hospital
Sometimes I sit down to write a post thinking I know what I’m talking about and then as I write and check the facts I thought I knew, I realize that I was completely on the wrong track. For instance, when I started putting together today’s article, reprinted from the Mississippi Architect April 1964 issue, I … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, April 1964: Say No To Historicism!
A few years back it was not uncommon to find streets in American towns which displayed an amazing array of architectural types. One might see a motel reflective of the architecture associated with Pueblo cliff dwellings next to a bank inspired by the Temple of Apollo. Continue reading
Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Pascagoula
Some contemporary residents of Pascagoula and Moss Point may be surprised to learn that streetcars formerly provided their area with a very fine system of public transportation! Continue reading
Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Natchez
Today’s post is Chapter 8 in our series re-printing Frank Brooks’ “Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Stories about Streetcars,” originally published in 1983. View other posts in the series at the “Streetcars” tab. ——————————————————————– The quaint old city of Natchez is another Mississippi city which enjoyed electric trolleys clanging up and down its hills and … Continue reading
Going Inside: An Original “Southern Colonial”
While in Charleston with the Southeastern Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH) a couple weeks ago, I got in on a special tour of Drayton Hall, just across the Ashley River from Charleston. Owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation since 1974, Drayton Hall is one of the oldest plantation houses in the country and the … Continue reading
From Charleston to Vicksburg, With Love
A couple of weeks ago, I was in Charleston, South Carolina, to attend the annual meeting of the Southern Society of Architectural Historians (which group, as you recall, met here in Jackson in 2009). I admit I skipped out on a few of the sessions, the weather being perfect for wandering and taking pictures. I … Continue reading
Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Meridian
Today’s post is Chapter 7 in our series re-printing Frank Brooks’ “Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Stories about Streetcars,” originally published in 1983. View other posts in the series at the “Streetcars” tab. In place of the 1920 streetcar map in the book, drawn by Gordon Powers, I have inserted two original streetcar maps from … Continue reading
Mississippi Builders: Francis Blair Hull (1846-1922)
At the center of an architectural dynasty that included two architects and one construction company, Francis Blair Hull’s contributions to the architecture of Mississippi and the entire South have been unfortunately almost forgotten in the 90 years since his death. F.B. Hull was the older brother of William S. Hull, possibly the first Mississippian member … Continue reading
MDAH Introduces New Database of Historic Resources in State
Every now and then, MissPres will come across a news story that needs its own post instead of getting folded into the regular roundup. While working on yesterday’s, I came across such an announcement on the MDAH Website. Below is the text of the press release about the website (I added images from screen shots … Continue reading
Old Capitol Follies: Almost a Panic in the Senate!
In the last Old Capitol Follies, the American Architect and Building News gave us a serious look at Jackson in 1890, including the sad shape of the Old Capitol. By 1896, the building had declined even further as legislators debated whether to spend the money to fix it up or build a completely new building. … Continue reading
Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Memphis and Lakeview Railway
Today’s post is Chapter 6 in our series re-printing Frank Brooks’ “Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi: Stories about Streetcars.” View other posts in the series at the “Streetcars” tab. ——————————– Lakeview, in DeSoto County, was the terminus of the Memphis and Lakeview Railway, a 10.8 mile interurban operation controlled by the Memphis Street Railway that … Continue reading
Mississippi Architect, March 1964: South Hills Branch Library
Jackson’s South Hills Branch Library was the Mississippi subject of the March 1964 issue of Mississippi Architect. Now known as Richard Wright Library, the building is still in use as a library, although the original front entrance is now sadly neglected in favor of a side entrance off of the parking lot. Next time you’re … Continue reading
101 Places to See Before You Die!
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