Last week, our crack researcher Carunzel, referenced the “CIC Historic Campus Architecture Project (HCAP)” in a reply to Day 3 of the contest, Woodworth Chapel at Tougaloo College. It reminded me of that website, which I am now including in the “Research Resources” over on the right-hand side toward the bottom.

Here’s what the site has to say about itself:

Between 2002 and 2006, the CIC HCAP was supported by two generous grants from the Campus Heritage Initiative of the Getty Foundation. From 2002-2004, CIC developed a survey to collect information about places of significant historical interest (in relation to architecture, landscape, American history, and the histories of education, religion, engineering, and culture) identified by representatives of institutions themselves. This survey was distributed among 724 independent, four-year, B.A.-granting institutions with less than 5,000 students. Nearly 50 percent of this original group participated in the project. In 2005, CIC began website development with a second two-year grant from the Getty Foundation.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the site has been updated since Nov 2006, but even still it has lots of good information about historic buildings on our private college campuses in the state (as proof that I’m probably too tired to be writing just now, when I looked at the list, I thought, “why isn’t Ole Miss on here?”). Not only are there facts about architects, renovations, contruction dates, and National Register listings, there is also usually a decent narrative about the building and at least one (sometimes historic) photo for each. If you click here, you’ll get straight to the Mississippi list, which is really all you need, right? The list includes Mississippi College, Belhaven College, Rust College, and Tougaloo College. My wish list would also have Millsaps on it, but for some reason, no one asked me . . . .

Looking at this site also reminded me of a very cool website developed by none other than our own Mississippi State University called “Landmark Buildings at Mississippi State.” I admit this site brings out the geek in me–I have spent more time than I should just clicking around. The design is very clean and organized, with a page dedicated to those buildings on campus designated as Mississippi Landmarks: each page contains a photograph, a google map, a brief description and history, and even a link to see the text from the cornerstone. The cornerstone! People after my own heart must have created this site!

Unfortunately, I don’t see anything on it that indicates how the site was created or whether it’s going to be updated. Hopefully it will continue to be updated as other buildings on campus become designated. But until then, it is still a good resource for research. Wouldn’t it be great if Ole Miss and USM got so jealous of how MSU was totally making them look bad that they created their own, even better historic buildings sites? Just a thought.

While you’re checking these two sites out, take a look at the other links under Research Resources–but fair warning, some of them (like groceteria.com) will suck you in!

Categories: Architectural Research, Mississippi Landmarks, Starkville, Universities/Colleges