According to a recent news release on the MDAH website, MDAH preservationists are trying to pinpoint when three columns at Windsor Ruins collapsed sometime between 1942 and 1971. If you or a family member or friend visited the site and took photos in that critical period, contact Mingo Tingle at MDAH.
Photographs of Windsor Ruins Sought
posted June 07, 2019
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) needs the public’s help to solve a mystery about one of the most iconic sites in the state. The department is seeking photographs of Windsor Ruins taken between 1942 and 1971 to determine when one of its masonry columns was lost.
Windsor Plantation was built for Smith Coffee Daniell II in 1861. One of the largest private residences in the state before the Civil War, the mansion featured twenty-nine Corinthian columns, each forty-five feet tall. In 1890, a fire destroyed the residence.
Today, only twenty-three full columns and five partial columns remain standing. It was believed that the missing columns were lost during the fire, but a 2017 study of the site conducted by architectural conservator George Fore has cast doubt on the claim.
“The report showed that three of the columns missing today were still standing as late as 1910,” said Mingo Tingle, chief of MDAH Technical Preservation Services. “We are trying to figure out when its seventeenth column was lost—it’s pictured in Eudora Welty’s 1942 photo of the ruins but missing in a National Park Service photograph taken in 1971. Having more pictures of Windsor Ruins from this period will help us solve this puzzle.”
If you have photos of Windsor Ruins taken between 1942 and 1971, email mtingle@mdah.ms.gov. Attach a detailed description with your submission.
Windsor Ruins was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, acquired by MDAH in 1974, and designated a Mississippi Landmark in 1985.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is the second-oldest state department of archives and history in the United States. A comprehensive historical agency, the department collects, preserves, and provides access to the archival resources of the state, administers various museums and historic sites, and oversees statewide programs for historic preservation, government records management, and publications. The department is headquartered in the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson. For more information call 601-576-6850.
For more Windsor . . .
Categories: Architectural Research
Preservation in Mississippi 
thanks for this post; am hoping i can provide some help for mr tingle.
LikeLike
i have written mr tingle twice with my ideas on this topic but have had no response. is he on vacation?
LikeLike
moving from ‘windsor’ to a wider field, i know some of our group will be interested in the current exhibition at atlanta’s high museum of a selection of photographs by clarence laughlin; one of his ‘windsor’ photos, taken in 1941 and called ‘the enigma’ , apparently plays a prominent role in the show–or, at least, in the show’s publicity!
go the the high museum’s website, then ‘find’ the info about this exhibition. unfortunately, i have already found some errors in some of the articles which review the show—such as the statement that ‘windsor’ burned TWICE!
well, yes, there was tremendous destruction to the plantation’s property and facilities when the yankees came through in connection with the vicksburg campaign, but the house was unharmed(except for its use as a military hq and hospital… which, of course, is not like having ‘invited guests’!)
and, contrary to what i have read in various places, laughlin’s photos of ‘windsor’ do not appear in ‘ghosts along the mississippi’–that book only has images from louisiana.
LikeLike
Does anyone know of a gentleman named Nick Snow who might have been one of the grounds caretakers in 1972. I am just wondering more about him.
LikeLike
LikeLike
There is a listing of the number of granite and marble columns that were removed from Leptis Magna and shipped by sea to Surrey, England .
I did find references of work done by architect English Sir Jeffrey Wyatville’s 1850s restoration related to the Virginia Water project at Windsor Park in Surrey. Is there any information as to what quarried stones were used in the construction of Claiborne county’s Windsor plantation home in order to establish a link? We now know that the columns that were salvaged from the Old Capitol Building, and that were purchased by Senator Bilbo for his dream home that burned, were wood clad steel metal.
LikeLike
Best, yet.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/roman-ruins-windsor-castle/550199/
LikeLike
Oops!
On further reading, I see that Claiborne county’s Windsor columns are constructed of brick with a stucco clad.
I couldn’t fathom the Leptis Magna columns floating up the Mississippi River.
LikeLike
Mingo Tingle is an interesting name. Surely he would be related to (deceased) Melvin Tingle who was with Miss Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.
LikeLike