Preservation in Mississippi
Cool Old Places
Oxford City Hall, former Federal Building and Post Office
Next up on the “101 Places in Mississippi to see before you die” list is the City Hall of Oxford, former Federal Building and Post Office for 90 years (1885-1975). The City Hall took 5% (43 votes) of the vote for the Oxford-Holly Springs region. Originally constructed in 1885 in a Romanesque Revival style, additions … Continue reading
A Little Contest
A while back at Preservation In Pink Kaitlin had a little quiz to identify a specific material, which turned out to be plaster scored to give the appearance of ceramic tile. I thought that it would be fun to have a little materials contest of our own here on MissPres. Several weeks back I stopped … 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
MissPres News Roundup 5-7-2012
I hope everyone is thinking about the different Historic Preservation Month related events that are on the calendar. Late April saw a slew of stories around the nation on the anniversary of last year’s tornado outbreak. While most of these focused on Alabama, Smithville had its coverage too. This story in the Hattiesburg American is … 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
MissPres News Roundup 4-23-2012
Before I jump in to this week’s Roundup, I want to remind everyone that the Statewide Preservation Conference is this week on the Gulf Coast. This is a year when Mississippi Heritage Trust gives out preservation awards, so I expect we’ll see press releases from that even popping up in future roundups. A story this … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 4-9-2012
A lot of news from this past week to share before we kick off the latest round of “Name This Place”: Gulfport Library is back in the news this week (for those not up on this issue, see the “Backstory” to catch up). This week’s news started with this blurb about the City looking to … Continue reading
MissPres News Round-up 4-2-2012
No fooling – it’s April already. Don’t forget the Statewide Conference at the end of the month. And now, the news. I’m going to start this week with bad news out of Smithville. The story from this community is “that the Mississippi Department of Archives and History is not pursuing landmark status on any of … Continue reading
National Preservation Economist to speak at Statewide Conference
One big news story I did not include in yesterday’s roundup was that our friends at Mississippi Heritage Trust have announced that registration is now open for the Statewide Preservation Conference. The conference will be held April 26 – 27 in Ocean Springs and Biloxi. According to MHT’s website: This year the Mississippi Main Street … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 3-26-2012
Got some troubling news in this week’s round up – so I’m trying to balance it with the joy of being able to type it up while sitting outside enjoying the wonderful Spring weather (thank goodness for laptops and wireless internet connections!) Here’s the news: The City of Tupelo is questioning if the $175,000 grant … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 3-19-2012
Google tells me that the first day of Spring is tomorrow – but judging by the layer of pollen on my car, I’d say it started weeks ago. Hope everyone is getting out and taking advantage of the warm (but not hot) temps to see some cool places! Since our last round-up, our friends and … 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
MissPres News Roundup 3-5-2012
Wow! I can’t believe it’s March already. Lots of Spring events on the calendar to take advantage of, so be sure to check it out. Now for the news: The biggest story I saw this week was from Natchez, where the Democrat reported that United Mississippi Bank was expected to assume ownership of Monmouth during … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 2-27-2012
March is almost upon us – and the MissPres calendar has all the events that are “Springing” up around the state. One to add to the calendar is the Loose Caboose Festival in Newton – which is this Saturday. And now the rest of the news: Up in Tupelo, the possibility of having a “waiting … 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
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
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