Author Archives

Thomas J. Rosell lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and has had an interest in preservation for twenty+ years. He has been lucky enough to work in different aspects of the field for ten years. His area of focus are materials conservation, archival, interpretive, and building restoration.

• Friday is a Gas: Humble, Enco, Esso, and Exxon c.1960-c.1970

  By Thomas Rosell on June 23, 2017 • ( 5 )

  

  I had planned for a post on this station later in the Friday is a Gas series, but due to the tornado damage this building suffered last Friday, I thought it might be good to highlight it in hopes of… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 6-20-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on June 20, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  Lots of good news this week so lets jump right into this week’s roundup. Good news from Starkville this week, compared to the news last week that fourteen structures including three historic houses were demolished.  Starkville Police to open new offices in restored… Read More ›

• Friday is a Gas: Pan Am/Amoco Stations c.1930-c.1940

  By Thomas Rosell on June 16, 2017 • ( 16 )

  

  Per Malvaney’s request and the plethora of examples received in the comments to last Friday’s post, this week we’ll focus on the Pan Am/ Amoco Stations of the c.1930s-c.1940s.  Unfortunately this station type is not listed in the handy-dandy 2016… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 6-13-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on June 13, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  Lets jump right into this week’s roundup. Starting in Starkville, fourteen structures including three historic houses were demolished this week for an “a planned upscale, mixed-use development that will include retail shops and loft apartments” The article gives the developers… Read More ›

• Friday is a Gas: Teague & The Icebox

  By Thomas Rosell on June 9, 2017 • ( 18 )

  

  While Teague and icebox might sound like the title of a terrible buddy cop TV show, the Teague and icebox designs of gas stations are some of the most recognizable service station designs from the late 1930s through the 1950s…. Read More ›

• Happy Birthday Bruce Goff & Frank Lloyd Wright

  By Thomas Rosell on June 8, 2017 • ( 7 )

  

  Go inside Bruce Goff’s “Star House,” built in 1960 for Mr. and Mrs. Emil Gutman in Bayou View neighborhood of Gulfport.

• MissPres News Roundup 6-6-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on June 6, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  From Corinth to Gulfport, and points in between, here’s some of the Mississippi preservation news that’s fit to print (virtually, on the internets).

• Friday is a Gas: Curbside Gas Pumps

  By Thomas Rosell on June 2, 2017 • ( 9 )

  

  These pumps were once quite common in Mississippi. Does anyone know where such a curbside pump might exist?

• MissPres News Roundup 5-30-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on May 30, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  Whats been going on Preservation wise in Jackson, Tupelo, Meridian, Hattiesburg, and your neck of the woods?

• Friday is a Gas: Gulf Gas Stations c.1920-c.1930

  By Thomas Rosell on May 26, 2017 • ( 7 )

  

  I was glad to see such an enthusiastic response to our new Friday series. Hopefully this week you can sleuth up some locations of Gulf Oil Service Stations constructed c.1920-1930.

• Friday is a Gas: Cities Service Stations c.1930 – c.1950

  By Thomas Rosell on May 19, 2017 • ( 19 )

  

    Cities Service was founded in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1910 as a public utility. The company operated natural gas, lighting, ice and other utility type services in major municipal locations during the early part of the century. – A Field Guide… Read More ›

• Mississippi Architects: W. A. Lattimore, African American Designer

  By Thomas Rosell on May 17, 2017 • ( 8 )

  

  I had not heard of W. A. Lattimore until I ran across an article in a 1963 edition of the Mississippi Free Press, an African American newspaper published from 1961 until about 1964.  My initial efforts to look into his body… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 5-16-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on May 16, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  Whew! We’ve got quite the round up this week. Let’s start this week’s roundup with the big news from…

• Roadside Mississippi: (former) Tastee Freeze, Jackson

  By Thomas Rosell on May 12, 2017 • ( 8 )

  

  A small roadside building with a stepped facade, front service windows, a curvilinear front fascia, and a flat roof that ever so slightly slopes to the rear of the structure. Could it be? A Tastee Freeze?

• MissPres Word of the Week: Gravity Ventilator

  By Thomas Rosell on May 10, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  What is a Gravity Ventilator?

• MissPres News Roundup 5-9-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on May 9, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  Let’s start this week’s roundup big news of the National Historic Landmark plaque dedication ceremony at the New Capitol.

• MissPres Around The World

  By Thomas Rosell on May 4, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  The MissPres website logs some interesting website stats for us including this map below. The red color of the United States of America means that is where a majority of the visitors to the site come from. Yellow means we’ve had… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 5-2-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on May 2, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  Let’s start this week’s roundup with the news on the damaging storms that crossed the state over the weekend. On Monday we reported some on the damage that occurred to historic places in Durant and Flora, but reports of the extent… Read More ›

• Chicken Chef: Mississippi’s Own A-Frame

  By Thomas Rosell on April 26, 2017 • ( 25 )

  

  A-frame buildings tend to stand out to me just because they are not too common around Mississippi, or anywhere else for that matter.  The term A-frame comes from the shape of the structure, where the roof extends down steeply on… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 4-25-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on April 25, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  Let’s jump right on in to this week’s roundup. In Neshoba County, near Philadelphia, the Mt. Zion Methodist Church is in the process of being nominated for National Register of Historic Places.  Mt. Zion Church was burned by the Ku Klux Klan… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 4-18-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on April 18, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  From Mary Holmes College to Gulfport Library, from fences at Greenwood Cemetery to the roof of the old Greenville Depot, from Natchez to Jackson to Tupelo and points in between, here’s all the Mississippi preservation news that’s fit to print (virtually, on the internets).

• New Capitol Presentations Available Online

  By Thomas Rosell on April 17, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  If you were not able to attend last month’s lectures at Mississippi State on Restoring the Mississippi State Capitol, fear not! The presentations of both Jennifer Baughn (MDAH Chief Architectural Historian) and Lawson Newman (WFT Architects) have been made available online… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 4-11-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on April 11, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  Mississippi preservation stories from here and there and all over the Twitterverse.

• The Matawan Texacos of Mississippi

  By Thomas Rosell on April 6, 2017 • ( 15 )

  

  I was in Monticello (Mississippi) a while back when a handsome former service station caught my eye. It is unmistakable as a Texaco station built in that fuel company’s “Matawan” style, so named after the site of the first location of… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 4-4-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on April 4, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  Let’s jump right on in to this week’s roundup. Pilgrimages are underway in Columbus, Natchez and Vicksburg. Follow the links below to see what’s going on in your neck of the woods.  Attending events like these is a great way to… Read More ›

• MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Penciled

  By Thomas Rosell on March 30, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  Recently I saw some neat pictures of the Old Brick House (built c.1850) in Biloxi.  That gave me the idea for this week’s MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Penciled.  The Old Brick House sits facing Biloxi’s Back Bay, so folks maybe… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 3-27-2017

  By Thomas Rosell on March 27, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  This is our last round-up for March.  It’s hard to believe that we are about to enter the second quarter of 2017 already. Let’s jump right on in to this week’s roundup. Since our last news round-up, MDAH has hosted another preservation… Read More ›