Author Archives

In addition to ruling over the MissPres universe with an iron fist, Malvaney enjoys reading, wandering around old buildings, stopping to smell the magnolias, fiddling with databases, and sitting on the porch with a good book and a big ol' dog. Non-interests include but are not limited to tweeting, texting, Instagramming, planking, Candy Crush, Donald Trump, and unecessarily destructive home renovation shows.

• Mississippi Architect: March 1965

  By ELMalvaney on July 8, 2015 • ( 5 )

  Editor Bob Henry’s final editorial in the Mississippi Architect is a precient warning about the encroaching blandness of Modernism. You can almost catch a wiff of post-Modernism around the corner waiting to jump out and surprise a bored American public.

• Bexley School Restored!

  By ELMalvaney on July 6, 2015 • ( 3 )

  

  You would have to be an original reader of Preservation in Mississippi to remember my ode to Bexley School in George County, all the way back in July 2009. The two-classroom school sits overlooking Highway 98 near Lucedale, and it’s… Read More ›

• Vacation Postcards: Columbus Tourist Court

  By ELMalvaney on July 3, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  MissPres is on vacation this week, but we’re sending postcards back from Mississippi’s past. For an alternate view, see http://collections.msdiglib.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/columbus/id/262/rec/11

• Vacation Postcards: Carriage Inn, Hattiesburg

  By ELMalvaney on July 2, 2015 • ( 2 )

  

  MissPres is on vacation this week, but we’re sending postcards back from Mississippi’s past.

• Vacation Postcards: Stradivari Court, Natchez

  By ELMalvaney on July 1, 2015 • ( 3 )

  

  MissPres is on vacation this week, but we’re sending postcards back from Mississippi’s past.

• Vacation Postcards: Harvey Motel, Macon

  By ELMalvaney on June 30, 2015 • ( 2 )

  

  MissPres is on vacation this week, but we’re sending postcards back from Mississippi’s past.

• Vacation Postcards: Highland Park, Meridian

  By ELMalvaney on June 29, 2015 • ( 7 )

  

  MissPres is on vacation this week, but we’re sending postcards back from Mississippi’s past. See also “Swimming Pools for Some.”

• Sad News From Lake Washington

  By ELMalvaney on June 17, 2015 • ( 25 )

  

  This morning, I checked my email to find several quick anguished notes from Delta friends letting me know that our beloved Mt. Holly, long endangered but beautiful even in its decline, was in flames. On Facebook, the group called “Antebellum Mansions of… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 6-15-2015

  By ELMalvaney on June 15, 2015 • ( 7 )

  

  Well, I have played hookey from the news roundup for so long that my list of articles was starting to really look at me askance, so to catch us all up, how about one of those Cliff Notes versions that… Read More ›

• Mississippi’s Governor’s Mansion, 1874 (Part II)

  By ELMalvaney on June 4, 2015 • ( 9 )

  

  Last week, we were introduced to Blanche Butler Ames (1847-1939), wife of Adelbert Ames, a Massachusetts native and former Union general who served two non-consecutive terms as governor during Reconstruction. Young Blanche entered the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion with some trepidation, unimpressed by… Read More ›

• Mississippi by Air: Broadwater Beach, Biloxi

  By ELMalvaney on May 29, 2015 • ( 4 )

  

  For the Broadwater’s story, see “Pleasure Domes Past” by Tom Barnes.

• Mississippi Governor’s Mansion, 1874

  By ELMalvaney on May 28, 2015 • ( 13 )

  

  Recently, I came across an interesting description of the Governor’s Mansion published in a book called Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century: Family Letters of Blanche Butler and Adelbert Ames, in Two Volumes. This is not a source I would have… Read More ›

• Builders of Mississippi: Charles M. Rubush (1844-1912)

  By ELMalvaney on May 27, 2015 • ( 2 )

  

  As in the rest of the country in the late nineteenth century, Mississippi’s construction trades were evolving from one-man operations and small partnerships to large building firms. Two men at the forefront of this development were Meridian’s Charles M. Rubush,… Read More ›

• Memorial Day 2015

  By ELMalvaney on May 25, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

• Mississippi Streets: 1930s Camp Shelby

  By ELMalvaney on May 22, 2015 • ( 3 )

  

    Note: I’m not an expert in dating postcards, so this date is just my best guess. If you have something better, let us know in the comments. See other Mississippi Streets: 1920s Yazoo City 1910s Vicksburg 1950s New Albany… Read More ›

• Belhaven Craftsman: N.W. Overstreet House

  By ELMalvaney on May 21, 2015 • ( 6 )

  

  Noah Webster Overstreet moved back to his native Mississippi from his architectural training in Urbana, Illinois in 1912 at the age of 24 (see Thomas Rosell’s post “Young N.W. Overstreet“). Newly married to an Illinois native, he set up practice in Jackson,… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 5-18-2015

  By ELMalvaney on May 18, 2015 • ( 5 )

  

  Let’s take a look at what’s going on in Mississippi’s preservation world this mid-May as the magnolias blossom, the humidity begins to drip, and the cicadas fill the air with their love-sick hum. In Tupelo, the Daily Journal reports that the National… Read More ›

• Mississippi Streets: 1960s Meridian

  By ELMalvaney on May 15, 2015 • ( 14 )

  

  Note: I’m not an expert in dating postcards, so this date is just my best guess. If you have something better, let us know in the comments. See other Mississippi Streets: 1920s Yazoo City 1910s Vicksburg 1950s New Albany

• MDAH Awards CLG Grants 2015

  By ELMalvaney on May 14, 2015 • ( 2 )

  

  Per MDAH’s website: Nearly $75K in Preservation Grants Awarded The Mississippi Department of Archives and History has awarded grants totaling more than $74,000 to sixteen preservation projects in Certified Local Government communities across the state. The 2015 CLG grants are… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 5-11-2015

  By ELMalvaney on May 11, 2015 • ( 1 )

  

  It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a proper news roundup, so we have lots to catch up on (or “on up which to catch”?). A couple of stories and videos in the last few weeks have kept us updated… Read More ›

• Mississippi by Air: Ingalls West Bank Shipyard 1968

  By ELMalvaney on May 8, 2015 • ( 1 )

  

• Magnolia Craftsman

  By ELMalvaney on May 7, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  Pike County’s seat of government has a number of interesting 19th-century buildings, and, as Suzassippi has shared here, a 1930s post office with not one but three murals. There’s enough to catch the eye that maybe these two Craftsman bungalows,… Read More ›

• Mississippi Architects: Theodore Link’s Obituary

  By ELMalvaney on May 6, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  LINK SUCCUMBS TO BRIEF ATTACK AT BATON ROUGE ————– Funeral of Distinguished Architect Will Be Held at St. Louis ————– BATON ROUGE, La, Nov. 12 — Death of Theodore Link, architect for the new Louisiana State University and Greater Agricultural… Read More ›

• Time to Nominate Your Preservation Project?

  By ELMalvaney on May 5, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  It’s that time of year to prepare nominations for the annual Best of the South award, given by the Southeastern Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians to the best preservation or restoration project in the South. Mississippi has been… Read More ›

• Going Inside: Home Ec Cottage, HJC

  By ELMalvaney on May 1, 2015 • ( 7 )

  

• Mid-Century Mississippi: Segregation in the Jet Age

  By ELMalvaney on April 30, 2015 • ( 6 )

  

  Today’s post is a follow-up to the previous Mid-Century Mississippi post about the opening of Jackson’s new jet airport in 1963. It’s a follow-up even though it was written a year earlier than that grand opening, because it shows the… Read More ›

• New Capitol Scaffolding Goes Higher

  By ELMalvaney on April 27, 2015 • ( 0 )

  

  If you were in downtown Jackson last week, you might have noticed that the scaffolding on the New Capitol got significantly higher, and by Tuesday had covered the very top, where the golden eagle perches. What’s going on up there?… Read More ›