Overstreet Thesis 1910
This might have limited appeal, but I think it’s pretty cool. Archive.org has, for our viewing pleasure, scanned and uploaded a copy of N. W. Overstreet‘s 1910 thesis for his Bachelor of Science Degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Illinois. The work is titled Report of a comparative test between an automatically controlled heating system and a hand-controlled heating system.
https://archive.org/stream/reportofcomparat00over#page/n3/mode/2up
The purpose of the tests was to make a comparison of each system, as to cost, manipulation, constant temperature produced, efficiency etc. The two test subjects, the Engineering Building, and the Physics Building (now the Material Science and Engineering Building) still stand on the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois.
That year the school produced a yearbook, The Illio. Overstreet is only mentioned once in the yearbook, as “NOAH W. OVERSTREET, B.S., Scholar in Architecture.” Overstreet along with the other “Fellows & Scholars” was listed in the book along with the faculty. This might have been due to the fact that Overstreet, having graduated from Mississippi A&M in 1908, was pursuing his second Bachelor’s degree.
Click to access illio1910univ.pdf
The Illio 1910 cover
Want to know the conclusions of Overstreet’s tests? You’ll just have to read the thesis yourself. :)
N.W.Overstreet c.1908 from Reville 1908 MSU yearbook
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Categories: Architectural Research, Books, Cool Old Places, Historic Preservation, Universities/Colleges
Preservation in Mississippi 
N. W. Overstreet was my grandfather. Thank you for this article. He was a man full of life, talent and he loved his family. My mama was his baby and only daughter. We are all very proud of him.
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How are you related to Phillip Overstreet of Moselle?
He moved to Cincinnati in the 1930s ending up in prison after a series of bank robberies?
He wrote a book on his imprisonment: From Prison To Pulpit.
He married a German immigrant girl from Cincinnati and they moved back to Hattiesburg in 1953. He made a living hauling pecans to Cincinnati and returning with player pianos bought at auctions and estate sales.
My family bought one.
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