Preservation in Mississippi
Historic Preservation
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 1-23-2012
Disclaimer: I just roundup the news stories, so don’t shoot the messenger . . . Might as well start with the worst of it . . . the crazy weather lately has causes major damage to the Corinth Machinery Building. W. White wrote up a little background on the building during the 101 Places Voting … 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
Tanks for the Memories -or- Travelling by Tank in Mississippi
Last month we finished Frank Brooks’ book Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi, our chapter-a-week Thursday feature for most of the late summer and fall. Recently in response to those posts, reader Leroy W. Demery Jr. has been sharing some of his good research on Mississippi’s trolly system, including this link to a blog published by … 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
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
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
Mississippi Landmarks 2011
To end our week of lists, here’s a photographic summary of the historic places designated as Mississippi Landmarks this year. As we’ve noted before, “Mississippi Landmark” and “National Register” are sometimes confused, but they are two completely different programs to recognize historic properties. The National Register is administered by the National Park Service, while the … Continue reading
Merry Christmas 2011
The current Biloxi City Hall was built as the U.S. Federal Building in 1905-08. The city acquired the building from the federal government in 1960 after the New Federal Building in Biloxi was completed. In my opinion it is the best edifice constructed of marble in the State, and also one of the State’s best … Continue reading
A Few of W. White’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. “Architects of Mississippi: Penn Jeffries Krouse“ “Penn Jeffries Krouse in Pearl River“ These two posts enhance our knowledge about one of Mississippi’s most important architects. P.J. Krouse’s name comes up … 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
A Few of Malvaney’s Favorite Things
Since this is the week before Christmas, we authors of MissPres thought we’d look back at some of our favorite posts and re-gift them, adding value with a few thoughts about why we liked them so much. It’s the closest we could come to raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, and hopefully these won’t … Continue reading
Fun Film For Friday
A short fun video for Friday afternoon. Click here to watch! This clip pokes fun at the ridiculous claims the vinyl window industry is known to make. For more info visit vinyl-windows.org
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
Restoring America’s Oldest African American Church
Catch this NPR story about the completion of a 6-year restoration project of Boston’s African Meeting House, the country’s oldest African-American church, celebrating its 205-year anniversary.
MDAH Announces 2011 CHPG Grantees
According to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s website, the department will be giving about $2 million in grants for the rehabilitation and repair of nineteen historic buildings around the state. As in the past, I’ve taken the liberty of adding photographs, obtained courtesy of MDAH’s Historic Preservation Division, which oversees the grants. Here’s the … 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
MissPres News Roundup 12-5-2011
Wow. I can’t believe it’s December already. Besides the year winding down, so is our 101 Places Poll with the Jackson area voting. Now to the news. First, sad news out of Lee County where Tupelo banker Marty Ramage passed away early this week. Ramage was also “a stellar local historian and author of several … Continue reading
Edible Mount Vernon
Speaking of Mt. Vernon, which you may recall we were doing earlier this week, it’s time for the annual Mt. Vernon gingerbread house, courtesy of former White House Executive Pastry Chef Roland Mesnier. In this YouTube video, Chef Mesnier explains how he goes about creating a scale model of George Washington’s house and outbuildings, using … Continue reading
Get Up And Go This Season
If you feel the need to get out of your house between now and Christmas without going anywhere near a mall, several Christmas Open Houses around the state are at your service. Hernando, Nov 20: Tour select historic homes throughout the historic county seat of DeSoto County. This year’s tour showcases homes which have been … Continue reading
MissPres News Roundup 11-7-11
Tomorrow’s election day – so go vote. While you’re at it, remember to vote in the latest 101 Places Poll. Now on to preservation news: First, found a story about an historic marker unveiling in Winona honoring the first American aviator to die in the line of duty nearly 100 years ago – Ensign William … 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
Mississippi Architect, March 1964: Cost and Light
It’s been a while since our last post re-printing the Mississippi Architect, a monthly magazine published by the Mississippi chapter of the American Institute of Architects. So let’s jump back in with the March 1964 issue. As you may recall, the February 1964 issue contained an article documenting the “updating” of an Art Moderne commercial … Continue reading
See Prospect Hill With Your Own Eyes!
There’s a saying, “To see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone.” In a few weeks, on Saturday, November 12, you will have the opportunity to go where few have gone (at least legally) when the Archaeological Conservancy holds an Open House at Jefferson County’s Prospect Hill. For those just coming … Continue reading
New Opportunities for Historic Schools?
Since the early days of MissPres, I’ve noted the often unnecessary demolition of historic schools and the lack of maintenance of those still operating as schools. Off the top of my head, I can name just a few of the important historic schools we’ve lost in the last couple of years: Speed Street School, Nailor Elementary School, Inverness … 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
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
Post Office Reuse Idea
Ran across this slide show story about an old post office that a woman turned into her house. It’s not in Mississippi, but I thought it was a good example of how creative people can be with historic buildings.
Turning On the Lights…Woodville’s Town Square Comes To Life With the Woodville Lofts
When New Orleans attorney James G. Derbes and his wife Jan Katz first saw the listing for the building in the newspaper they knew that they had to have the property. A short while later in April 2006, Ernesto Caldeira handed them the deed to the old building. The task wouldn’t be easy, but Derbes … 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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