Among the many nerdy activities I undertake in order to keep myself off the streets and out of trouble is the organization of my library of digital photographs, now up around 100,000 images, including a bunch of scanned postcards that you usually see only during Vacation Postcard weeks. This is especially great to pass the time in the winter after you’ve taken way too many pictures in the beautiful light of spring and summer and now have to face reality. I use Photoshop Elements Organizer, which allows tagging with location (geotagging), people, events, and as many self-created tags as you can think of. Most of my tags, obviously, are architecture-related, ranging from details like mantels, cornices, columns, stairs, and the like, to materials such as concrete, brick, and vitrolite, to architectural styles, forms (octagonal houses, anyone?), architects (of course!), and periods.

Period is one of the latest tag groups I’ve added to the mix, and I’ve divided history into 50 year and 10 year increments to help myself see what buildings were being built all around the world (or at least the world I’ve seen in my limited travels) around the same time. Since Mississippi doesn’t have many buildings surviving from before 1800, my periods before then are in 50-year increments (1750-1799), but starting with 1800, I have decade-long increments (1800-1809).

Tag Tuesdays will focus on Mississippi buildings, of course, but I’ll also throw buildings from elsewhere into the mix, usually buildings that are open to the public so you can go visit them too. Today, we’ll start with the era of the oldest building in Mississippi, affectionately known for much of the 20th century as Old Spanish Fort (aka De la Pointe-Krebs House because it’s neither Spanish nor a fort) in Pascagoula, which was recently dated through dendrochronology to 1757. We’ll move chronologically through the period, stepping out of Mississippi a couple of times. What else was going on in Mississippi in the period 1750-1799? And how to we compare with other places in the same period?

OLD SPANISH FORT AND MUSEUM, PASCAGOULA, MISSISSIPPI . . . The oldest building in the Mississippi Valley. Located on Krebs Lake, near banks of Singing River.

Here’s one that really is Spanish, and may have been a fort sometimes too.

Mission Conception,, San Antonio, TX (dedicated 1755)

Mission Conception,, San Antonio, TX (dedicated 1755)

St. Michael’s Church, 80 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC (1752-61, interior 1772, renovated 1818, 1887, 1905). Long considered on of America’s most sophisticated colonial church buildings.

Mt. Locust (c.1775), Natchez Trace, Jefferson County

Mt. Locust (c.1775), Natchez Trace, Jefferson County

Mt. Locust (c.1775), Natchez Trace, Jefferson County

Single Brothers House, Old Salem, NC (1769, half-timbered original; 1789, brick addition).

Single Brothers House, Old Salem, NC (1769, half-timbered original; 1789, brick addition).

Single Brothers House, Old Salem, NC (1769, half-timbered original; 1789, brick addition).

Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo (1782), San Antonio, TX

Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo (1782), San Antonio, TX

Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo (1782), San Antonio, TX

Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo (1782), San Antonio, TX)

Hope Farm, Natchez (c.1790)

King’s Tavern, Natchez (c.1795)

House on Ellicott’s Hill (c.1800)

Categories: Architectural Research, Cool Old Places, Historic Preservation, Natchez, Pascagoula

Tags: Featured