Here’s a quick rundown of the news from the last week to get us started on this President’s Day week.
The Markham Hotel in Gulfport
⇒ Several articles in the Sun-Herald bring us up-to-date on the Markham Hotel and its possible renovation after being bought by a Virginia attorney and investor Robert Lubin. The nearby editorial “Up and Down the Coast, There’s Reason to Believe,” uses the Markham, built in 1927 and listed on the Mississippi Heritage Trust’s 10 Most Endangered List in 2011, as a poster child and also mentions the revival of the Katrina-damaged Santa Maria del Mar, a beachfront retirement highrise in Biloxi, as luxury apartments.
⇒ The Gilmer Hotel, a longtime institution in downtown Columbus, is undergoing asbestos abatement in preparation for demolition by the City of Columbus. According to WCBI:
The city bought the old hotel for $425,000 late last year. Before demolition can move forward, more work must be done. “As soon as we get the quotes in for asbestos removal and take care of that and have it removed, then the next step will be to take bids to have it demolished and the sooner the better,” said Columbus Mayor Robert Smith.
⇒ Still in Columbus, the Dispatch has an extensive article, “City Hall work continues” about the exterior and interior renovation of the Columbus City Hall, built in 1903 and, like many of that town’s landmarks, was designed by R.H. Hunt of Chattanooga. The building has received two grants from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and the $1.5 million project will bring the building, which had been modernized and otherwise altered, back to its original grandeur.
⇒ Also in the northeast part of the state, WTVA has an image a log cabin on a truck in Union County partially tipped over into a ditch that must be the nightmare of every house mover. The c.1850 log cabin was being moved down the road by its owners Gayle and Bill Rutledge, who are in the process of restoring it. Hopefully, the movers have since righted the ship and gotten back on track, if I may be allowed to mix my metaphors.
⇒ Here’s the latest update on the ongoing restoration of the Chalmers Institute in Holly Springs.
⇒ Finally, if you didn’t catch this, make sure to read the Associated Press article, “The Architecture of White Supremacy Still Evokes Pain,” that was published in several papers and a number of national sources. It touches on themes we’ve examined here on MissPres about the debate over how and why to preserve places and landmarks that have a negative past or even complex and ambivalent ones, and it mentions the two water fountains at Jones County Courthouse in Ellisville.
On that topic, see also . . .
Categories: Biloxi, Columbus, Gulf Coast, Gulfport, Holly Springs
Preservation in Mississippi 
Lubin also owns the Eola Hotel in Natchez. Let’s hope he is more transparent and up front with the community about this project than he has been with the Eola.
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