Author Archives

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Steamboat to Dreamboat

  By Suzassippi on May 26, 2015 • ( 3 )

  

  While paging through an old Life magazine, my eye caught the “Mississippi” in this advertisement.  Steamboats have been part of the history and culture of the Mississippi River from its Lake Itasca, Minnesota origins to where it empties into the Gulf of… Read More ›

• New Deal in Mississippi: Coffeeville School Administration Building

  By Suzassippi on May 19, 2015 • ( 3 )

  

  Edgar Lucian Malvaney is identified as the architect for the enlargement of the Coffeeville school administration building in 1938 (Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Historic Resources Inventory).  As part of the school complex, it looks like it was used… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Miss. Foundry & Machine Company of Jackson

  By Suzassippi on April 28, 2015 • ( 10 )

  

  Mississippi Foundry and Machine Company is located at 300 West South Street, Jackson.  I was introduced to the building on Urban Decay.  The painted sign “Ironworks” on the end of the building threw me for a loop, so it took… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Lafayette County

  By Suzassippi on April 21, 2015 • ( 7 )

  

  Midway through 2009 I stumbled across the Preservation in Mississippi blog.  I have always been interested in old buildings and photographing them.  After another year of lurking around as a hanger-onner-wannabe I finally ventured out of my comfort zone and… Read More ›

• New Deal in Mississippi: West End Fire Station

  By Suzassippi on March 31, 2015 • ( 5 )

  

  The Biloxi Volunteer Fire Company No. 1, the first fire company for the city, was organized September 3, 1883 (The Daily Picayune, September 6, 1883, p. 1, R. L. Bellande, Biloxi Historical Society).  West End Fire Co. No. 3 was… Read More ›

• Duncan, Mississippi: Part 4

  By Suzassippi on March 17, 2015 • ( 27 )

  

  Thanks to gstone for the photograph of the Duncan Drug Store, closed since 1965.  Try as I might, I have been unable to locate any information about the store.  I am sure if you are of a similar age some… Read More ›

• New Deal in Mississippi: Vardaman school buildings

  By Suzassippi on March 10, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  It’s been a bit since we toured any of the New Deal buildings in Mississippi, so I thought it was high time for a road trip to Vardaman–the one and only sweet potato capital of the world.  Unfortunately, up here… Read More ›

• Duncan, Mississippi after the 1929 tornado, Part 3

  By Suzassippi on March 3, 2015 • ( 14 )

  

  In the concluding edition of the aftermath of the 1929 Duncan tornado, we focus on a family, a child, and a unique culture that has contributed to the Mississippi Delta and beyond. In the Fong family, who operated the Fong Chinese grocery store in Duncan, all but a 4 year old boy, William Joe Fong, perished. Joe Fong and his other children died in the tornado, and Quan Shee Fong died not long after in a Memphis hospital from injuries sustained. She was buried alongside her husband and children in the Greenville Chinese cemetery.

• Duncan after the 1929 tornado: Part 2

  By Suzassippi on February 10, 2015 • ( 6 )

  

  Last week introduced part 1 of a 3-part series on Duncan, Mississippi after the 1929 tornado destroyed many of the village’s homes and businesses.  This week will highlight some of the buildings that were constructed following the tornado.   (Note:… Read More ›

• Duncan, Mississippi after the 1929 Tornado, Part 1

  By Suzassippi on February 3, 2015 • ( 12 )

  

  With little warning, a category F4 tornado swept across the Delta village of Duncan at 2:30 p.m. Monday, February 25, 1929.  Two blocks of Main Street businesses (numbering 14 in one report, including a two-story brick hotel) were destroyed.  Sources… Read More ›

• Smokestacks: The nitty gritty or work of art?

  By Suzassippi on January 20, 2015 • ( 11 )

  

  Once soaring symbols of the Industrial Revolution and material progress, smokestacks later became the poster kids of environmental degradation.  Today, legions of artists, urban planners and preservationists are seeking to change those carbon chugging chimneys from sooty to beauty. (Smokin’… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: First 2015 road trip to 101 Places–Elvis Presley birthplace

  By Suzassippi on January 6, 2015 • ( 6 )

  

  We haven’t visited a 101 place in a while, so it seemed fitting to jump into the new year with a stop off at one of the most famous of the 101 Places in Mississippi to See Before You Die–the… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi Church Tour: Please sign the visitor’s card

  By Suzassippi on December 16, 2014 • ( 15 )

  

  In her Historic Churches of Mississippi (Sherry Pace, with Richard J. Cawthon, 2007, University Press of Mississippi), Pace takes us on a tour of churches throughout the state. Cawthon’s Lost Churches of Mississippi (2010, University Press of Mississippi) added the… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Canted Corner Entrances

  By Suzassippi on December 9, 2014 • ( 36 )

  

  I adore corner entrances, aka canted, beveled, angled.  Something about them does, always has, always will, appeal to me.  Quick, pop quiz: Where are the two entrances featured above?  It’s nearing the end of the year, so here is a… Read More ›

• New Deal in Mississippi: Columbus Post Office and Mural

  By Suzassippi on December 3, 2014 • ( 9 )

  

  The Columbus post office (1937-1939) in Lowndes County is another of the federal buildings funded and constructed by the New Deal Administration.  In the case of Columbus, the result was a Stripped Classic building, which was described as …largest and… Read More ›

• New Deal in Mississippi: Macon Community House

  By Suzassippi on November 18, 2014 • ( 5 )

  

  Macon’s Emergency Relief Administration-financed community house was constructed in the Craftsman bungalow style, and is currently used as the American Legion Hut, Post 63 for Noxubee County (Mississippi Department of Archives & History, Historic Resources Inventory; Barrow, 2001, NRHP nomination… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Lynville Gymnasium

  By Suzassippi on October 28, 2014 • ( 5 )

  

  Lynville’s 1947 gymnasium is 1.5 stories.  The gable roof building is still standing, and appears to be in remarkably good shape.  You can see interior photographs from the MDAH HRI database.  Since no one showed up to play but me… Read More ›

• Lynville School Complex: Home Economics Building and Teachers’ Houses

  By Suzassippi on October 21, 2014 • ( 5 )

  

  Last week we toured the WPA-built Lynville school building, with some good news about efforts to restore the building for community use.  The home economics building was constructed that same year, in 1941.  Mississippi, like many other states, often utilized… Read More ›

• New Deal in Mississippi: Lynville School

  By Suzassippi on October 14, 2014 • ( 16 )

  

  New at the time construction materials and techniques were used.  Exterior walls are of strand steel and poured concrete.  It has a slate roof. (“Get together held at Lynville school.” 10/23/2013. Kemper County Messenger) The WPA financed school building was… Read More ›

• New Deal in Mississippi: Macon City Hall

  By Suzassippi on October 7, 2014 • ( 0 )

  

  Macon’s City Hall, looking remarkably like several of the red brick Colonial Revival post offices built in Mississippi during the New Deal years, was constructed 1938-1939 through Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, project #Miss 1366-F. Architects P. J. Krouse and L. L. Brasfield of Meridian designed the building.

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Zama Consolidated School

  By Suzassippi on September 30, 2014 • ( 30 )

  

  The community of Zama, in Attala County, was named for the daughter of one of the town’s founders. The first school building was constructed in 1907, and in 1949, Edgar Lucian Malvaney designed a new classroom building.

• Flora School Mystery

  By Suzassippi on September 16, 2014 • ( 42 )

  

  Here is another one of those intriguing mysteries that I cannot solve, and I have been trying since August 4th.  The building pictured is currently being used as the Administration Building for the Madison County School system, and is located… Read More ›

• Before: The 1942 Works Progress Administration Clinton Elementary School; After: The 2014 Residence Hall

  By Suzassippi on September 9, 2014 • ( 10 )

  

  This beautiful Colonial Revival building was designed by architect J. M. Spain and constructed by the Works Progress Administration in 1942. It will be replaced by a MIssissippi College residence hall.

• New Deal in Mississippi: Greenwood Underpass, AKA Main Street Railway Bridge Crossing

  By Suzassippi on September 2, 2014 • ( 4 )

  

  Named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, and a Mississippi Landmark in 2010, the Main Street Railway Bridge hails from 1938, and a combined effort of the Mississippi State Highway Department and funding from the Works Progress Administration. … Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Former Union County Training School

  By Suzassippi on August 19, 2014 • ( 3 )

  

  Although the Union County Training School for African Americans got its start in 1912, when the New Albany School Board purchased the site, the school operated from the former Baker home.  That building burned in 1943.  The old gymnasium, constructed… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: The Avon, Von, Bon Theatre in Hernando

  By Suzassippi on August 6, 2014 • ( 3 )

  

    The circa 1940 theatre started out as the Avon according to Amy Chatham of Friends of Von Theatre (Henry Bailey, “Hernando chasing funds for skate park, will chill at Front Porch Jubilee,” Commercial Appeal, March 10, 2014). …the ‘A’… Read More ›

• Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Coldwater School

  By Suzassippi on July 22, 2014 • ( 8 )

  

  The Coldwater School may not look like much on a gray and raining day, but a closer inspection reveals some nice details.  The classroom and auditorium buildings, completed in 1944, were attributed to Edgar Lucian Malvaney (Mississippi Department of Archives… Read More ›