Well, it’s been three weeks since our last roundup, so for both our sakes, I’m going to be to the point in this one to keep the news from overwhelming you and me on this August Monday morning.

To start off, there are a few events happening this week that you might want to attend if you’re in the area.

• Tuesday, August 25, as part of the celebration of the National Park Service’s 99th birthday, Melrose in Natchez will be open all day for free (it’s normally $10 admission). This is a great time to go to Melrose because its historic faux-marble exterior has recently been restored after a multi-year building project. (See “History in its veins” in the Natchez Democrat for more.)
• Thursday, August 27, 6:00: Delta Modern at Lakeport Plantation. This month’s Lakeport Legacies will feature Jennifer Baughn, chief architectural historian at the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, discussing Mid-Century architecture (1930s-1960s) in the Mississippi Delta. Lakeport Legacies meets in the Dining Room of the Lakeport Plantation house, across the Mississippi River from Greenville.
• Thursday, August 27, 6:30: The Mississippi AIA will be hosting Movie Night at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. The documentary film: My Architect, A Son’s Journey is a great introduction to Louis Kahn and it will also make you want to go hug your dad for not having multiple secret families. Movie begins at dusk outdoors in the Art Garden. Movie Snacks & Beverages available for purchase.

Speaking of Natchez, the Eola Hotel, whose new owner Robert Lubin had announced plans to turn the building into a senior-citizens apartments, may still have some hotel rooms after all after Mayor Butch Brown talked with Lubin. The hotel, a 1920s icon of downtown Natchez, has been closed since late last year, and has suffered from its small rooms and competition from other newer hotels nearby.  Read more . . . 

In Oxford, the 1880s Queen Anne law office of the late Tom Freeland and before that, William Faulkner’s attorney and friend Phil Stone, will become the new home of Visit Oxford, according to the Mississippi Business Journal. Read more . . .

The Mississippi Dept. of Education is temporarily moving out of its headquarters in Jackson’s 1920s Central High School building after perhaps the most expensive dumpster fire in history last month. According to the Jackson Free Press, heat from the dumpster, which was owned by the Marriott hotel, broke out windows in the DOE building, and the smoke set off the sprinklers through the entire building, causing water damage. Employees will be scattered, but most will be located at the old WorldCom building in Clinton. Read more . . .

The slave quarters on the property of Temple Heights in Columbus was badly damaged by a falling oak tree a couple of weeks ago, after one to three inches of rain fell and loosened the soil, according to WTVA. I haven’t seen a follow-up on this story, but the pictures didn’t look good. Temple Heights, a stunning Greek Revival sidehall house built in 1837, has been on the Columbus Pilgrimage for forty years and is for sale and you can see photos of its grand rooms here. Read more . . .

According to the Sun-Herald, residents of the Turkey Creek Historic District in north Gulfport are once again fighting for the survival of their once-rural African American community, this time about the proposed in-fill of 432 acres of nearby wetlands for a “mixed-use commercial/retail business park, including a mixed-use town center.” (Did I mention this would be “mixed use”?) (Does it matter that Gulfport already has a “town center”?). Read more . . . 

This was posted back in June on the Mississippi Dept. of Archives and History page, but I missed it until recently and thought I’d share anyway. The 2015 Legislature appropriated $300,000 to restore the thousand-year-old Winterville Mounds to their pre-Columbian appearance. Once restoration is complete, a trail around the perimeter will give visitors an idea of the scape of the earthworks. Read more . . . 

An email I received from Greenville indicates that the rear wing of Greenville High School (1910) will have to be demolished, after years of abandonment during which the roof of the front section collapsed. Engineer Mark Watson reported that the back wing is structurally unsound and cannot be repaired without extreme measures.

Another email correspondent from Vicksburg said that the antebellum home McRaven has recently sold to a couple from Magee whose goal is to “save the house and share it.”

Last but not least, check out these photos of an AmeriCorps team from Vicksburg working hard on cleaning Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson and painting the iron fence.

Categories: Greenville, Gulfport, Jackson, Natchez, Oxford, Vicksburg

Tags: Featured