Preservation in Mississippi
Cool Old Places
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
MissPres News Roundup 2-13-2012
Happy Monday! Here’s the latest preservation news from around the state: We’ll start on the Coast where 33rd Avenue School in Gulfport is back in the news. If you remember from a couple of posts last summer (here and here), the conflict surrounding the school is that the Department of Labor wants to demolish the … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 2-6-2012
We have a short-ish round up this week – meaning that you will still have plenty of time to search for the most popular commercials from this year’s Super Bowl. Our first story this week is in regards to the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson. The Sun Herald ran an Associated Press story about the temporary … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 1-30-2012
After last week, I thought I might have to change my name and hide for a while with all the bad news to report, but found this week to be better, so I decided it was safe to do the roundup. Been trying to watch for stories on the Corinth Machinery Building, which was part … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 1-17-2012
Wow! We’re already into the 3rd week of January. I know our friends at MDAH are busy this week – National Register Nominations will be considered at their Review Board meeting on Thursday and their Board of Trustees meets Friday – probably with some Mississippi Landmarks on the agenda. We’ll see what news comes out … Continue reading
New Year’s Resolutions for Preservation: 2012
Now that every other visual, print, and digital media outlet in the universe has bombarded us with New Years Resolution lists for 2012, I thought it might be prime time to share mine. I swear I came up with this idea before I saw the National Trust’s blog post regarding preservation resolutions for the new … 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
The Possibilities Abound…The Robert E. Lee Hotel in Jackson
With all of the hype and hoopla over the summertime smash hit the Help, the many references to the old Robert E. Lee Hotel might set people to wondering about the place. Visitors to downtown Jackson might be forgiven for the assumption that the Robert E. Lee State Office Building had been built as such. It … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 1-3-2012
Happy New Year MissPres! I was on vacation for the holidays – but preservation in the news kept going (and thanks to Malvaney and Theodore who helped make sure I didn’t miss these stories while I was gone). Unfortunately, the last weeks of the year brought bad news from a couple places . . . … 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
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
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
MissPres News Roundup 12-12-2011
This may surprise everyone, but today’s Roundup is the final one for 2011 because of the end of year posts we have planned the next two weeks. A lot of the news I saw this week were local press releases on the projects receiving Community Heritage grants – which we covered with MDAH’s release – … Continue reading
Mississippi Places We’re Thankful For
As seen in “Katrina Survivors: Randolph Rosenwald School, Pass Christian“
Mississippi Places We’re Thankful For
Happy Thanksgiving Y’all! Now get off the computer/smart phone/iPad and go have some turkey and head down a red dirt road! As seen in “Dealing With Vernacular Places“
Mississippi Places We’re Thankful For
As seen in “Architect Pics: William Nichols (1780-1853)“
Mississippi Places We’re Thankful For
As seen in “Coolest Ole Miss Buildings“
MissPres News Roundup 11-21-2011
Since I can’t resist the joke – this week’s Roundup is stuffed with tidbits from around the state . . . Now that the joke’s out of my system, let’s get to the actual news. First, wonderful news from the Bolivar Commercial about Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou. Thanks to a USDA Rural Development Grant … 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
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
MissPres News Roundup 10-31-2011
Happy Halloween! I think the Great Pumpkin brought us treats early, but unfortunately there is one “trick” in the round up this week. First, news out of Natchez where Stanton Hall has had structural engineers examining the building to locate the source(s) of problems in the landmark house. The article talks about some new technologies … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 10-17-2011
Compared to the last couple of Mondays, this week’s roundup feels pretty short. So after you’ve caught up on the news, go check out the voting on the Delta Poll for our 101 Places list. We’re going to start in east Mississippi where the news is that the demolition process for the Hotel Meridian has … Continue reading
A Laurel Church by Clair M. Jones
A few weeks ago, as you may recall, guest author Mark Davis introduced us to Memphis architect Clair Maurice Jones. Jones not only designed a number of large and regionally famous Modernist works in both Atlanta and Memphis, but also many smaller works such as Weems Chapel United Methodist Church in Picayune, Mississippi. In a … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 10-10-2011
For the second week in a row, we have a lot of news to share from around the state – so I’m going to get right into it: First, a story we’ve been following out of Columbus for a couple of months has come up again. According to the Dispatch, the ongoing efforts to create … Continue reading
MissPres Newsroundup 10-3-2011
MissPres may have been off last week (and showing some fun vacation post cards), but the news didn’t stop. In fact, with the cooler weather, I think preservation related news and events are just starting to heat up. October is Archeology Month and I hear from some archeologist pals that there are events planned around … Continue reading
Where Have All The Buzzards Gone?
I came across this fun little historical nugget a while back while reading through the 1906 Vicksburg Post on microfilm, but I’ve been sitting on it for just the right occasion. Since today is Friday and I’m already mentally on vacation, this is officially just the right occasion. Buzzards in Dome of New Capitol, Vicksburg … Continue reading
Mini News Roundup 9-19-2011
Not a lot of news this week – but Roundup will be taking next week off and I didn’t want to hold these for that long. NBC station WTVA reported that the Cates-Gaither Home in Fulton – commonly known as “The Cedars” – was designated as a Mississippi Landmark by MDAH. The designation was actually … Continue reading
Going Inside: St. Dominic’s Chapel
A while back, reader Gary E. Magee commented on an old post about Jackson architect Tom Biggs that one of Bigg’s designs, the chapel at St. Dominic hospital, is slated for demolition in a planned expansion of the adjacent emergency area. This reminded me that I had taken some pictures of the building earlier this year … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 9-13-2011
The nicer temps last week made me yearn for Fall – and I hope the weather is nice for all of us to plan trips to Fall Pilgrimages that are on the calendar and/or to see places likely to end up on our 101 List. And now, the news:WXVT in the Delta had a short … Continue reading
Going Inside: War Memorial Building
Perhaps the only good thing that might come out of the Feds recent abandonment of the amazing and sophisticated Eastland Federal Building (1933) in downtown Jackson for their clumsy and overbearing new courthouse is that in the future the public might once again get to spend time inside Eastland’s Art Deco lobby. For too many … Continue reading
“Because for instance the Meridian Hotel is much older, we feel it’s best to tear it down”
Back in June’s “Rumblings and Bumblings from Meridian” I noted some rumors about the possible demolition of downtown Meridian’s Meridian Hotel, built in 1910 as one of the first “skyscrapers” in Meridian, and an anchor of the downtown historic district as you enter from the south over the railroad tracks. It took a couple of … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 8-30-2011
A lot of the news this past week focused on the East Coast and Hurricane Irene – which made me (and probably a lot of you as well) remember that the Katrina anniversary was yesterday; hence no post in memory of that important event in Mississippi preservation history. Despite that, I still found plenty of … Continue reading
A Tale of Two Domes: Mississippi and Arkansas
A few months ago, Blake Wintory, director of Lakeport Plantation Museum–which because it’s just across the river from Greenville makes him an honorary Mississippian–e-mailed me with a question that kind of blew my mind. He asked if I knew that the Arkansas Capitol dome was designed by the same architect that designed the Mississippi Capitol … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 8-15-2011
This week’s Roundup makes me feel like I’m in a bad sequel to a previous summer blockbuster film like Jaws: The Revenge. Okay, so maybe comparing it to one of the worst films ever made exaggerates this week’s news a little, but August has brought some hot topics – and not so great news – … Continue reading
Time to Go to Meeting
Back in the day when school didn’t start at the beginning of August, late July and August meant camp meeting time. The Vicksburg Post took note of this over a hundred years ago. CAMP MEETINGS IN FULL BLAST The camp meeting season is now in full blast throughout the state, and evangelists who can stir … Continue reading
Architects of Mississippi: Penn Jeffries Krouse
The July 2011 issue of the newsletter of the Pearl River County Historical Society, The Historical Reporter of Pearl River County, featured a long article about the life and career of yet another once-prominent but now mostly unrecognized Mississippi architect, P.J. Krouse. We’ve looked at some of Krouse’s buildings here on MissPres, (see An Alabama-Mississippi Architectural … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 8-1-2011
Just a handful of preservation related stories from around the state to share this week – so this roundup will be shorter than most. After you all read up on these stories, perhaps you want to spend some time contemplating the latest 101 Places Poll that went up on Friday. I think the biggest story … Continue reading
Cumbest Bluff Water Tank
About 15 miles north of Pascagoula on Highway 63, sits the town of Cumbest Bluff. Simon Cumbest(1755-1820) who first settled on the Pascagoula River in 1799 was the progenitor of the Mississippi Cumbest clan. Cumbest Bluff gained its name in 1832 when John Cumbest (1792-1833), son of Simon Cumbest, purchased land with a bluff that is on … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 7-25-2011
While we’ve been reading about Mound Bayou and playing our 8th Round of Name This Place, here’s what’s been going on in Preservation News around the state: First, news from the Dispatch in Columbus where the local commission is looking to create a new local historic district in Southside. Everything in the article tells me … Continue reading
Name This Place 8.0
While our fearless leader is away, the rest of the MissPres World will play. That’s right, it’s time for the latest edition of Name This Place. In the last edition, W. White and I tied for the honors of *Mississippi Preservationist Extraordinaire* but who will take the title this time? Since I’m hosting this version … Continue reading
101 Places to See Before You Die!
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