Author Archives

• 1970s Architecture and the Future of Historic Preservation in Mississippi

  By W. White on February 13, 2018 • ( 29 )

  

  Three weeks ago, Thomas Rosell’s post “Mississippi’s Best Buildings of 1974” stirred up a substantial amount of conversation on local Mississippi examples of 1970s era architecture. It is eye-opening to many historic preservationists that buildings from this decade will be… Read More ›

• A Thank You to ELMalvaney for Preservation in Mississippi

  By W. White on February 9, 2018 • ( 28 )

  

  I would like everyone who reads this site to take time out of his or her day to join me in saying thank you to ELMalvaney for starting Preservation in Mississippi nine years ago and for the incredible posting schedule… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 1-22-2018

  By W. White on January 22, 2018 • ( 3 )

  

  This first News Roundup of 2018 will compile the historic preservation news related articles from the first three weeks of this cold, flu-riddled year, with some from December that fell through the cracks. Now for the news. The Belzoni Banner… Read More ›

• A Beaux Arts Swimming Pool Design in Mississippi?! – Aberdeen’s Acker Park

  By W. White on June 7, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  Yes, there used to be a Beaux Arts public swimming pool in Mississippi. Thomas Rosell’s comment on the Swimming Pools for Some post asking about an abandoned swimming pool in Aberdeen is the impetus behind this post about historic Acker Park… Read More ›

• Small Homes in the New Tradition: Architect’s House in Springdale, Arkansas, William Oglesby, Architect

  By W. White on January 27, 2017 • ( 14 )

  

  Yes, I know that the blog is Preservation in Mississippi and this house is in Arkansas, but Malvaney has posted about New Orleans multiple times so I have an excuse for this bit of mission drift. An aside every once… Read More ›

• Small Homes in the New Tradition: Weekend Cottage near Jackson, Mississippi (Champion Lodge), Robert Overstreet, Architect

  By W. White on January 26, 2017 • ( 15 )

  

  The benefit to constantly looking for architectural history books to add to my library is that I never know exactly what I will come across next. In this case, it is a (rather beat-up copy) of Small Homes in the… Read More ›

• Another Important House Needs Our Help – Georgiana Plantation

  By W. White on January 24, 2017 • ( 11 )

  

  Preservation in Mississippi has actively followed the progress of Prospect Hill Plantation since 2009, when Malvaney posted “An Important House Needs Our Help.” Since 2011, Prospect Hill has been owned and slowly but steadily restored by The Archaeological Conservancy, spearheaded by… Read More ›

• Preservation in Mississippi Historic Real Estate

  By W. White on January 20, 2017 • ( 10 )

  

  One of the common complaints about historic preservationists from non-historic preservationists, particularly of the internet troll variety, is that if preservationists want to save something they should buy it or shut up about it. This is an ignorant, internet troll-ish… Read More ›

• Meridian Demolitions and Why Ordinary Old Houses Almost No One Cares About Should Be Preserved

  By W. White on January 19, 2017 • ( 10 )

  

  At the end of the WTOK News story about the demolition of the Old Citizens Bank Building at 2212-2214 Fourth Street in Meridian was a statement by Community Development Director Bunky Partridge, “Well, we’re always looking at our homes around… Read More ›

• Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2017 – Civil Rights Posts on Preservation in Mississippi

  By W. White on January 16, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  To celebrate this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day (or Great Americans Day according to some at the City of Biloxi), Preservation in Mississippi is highlighting some of the site’s many posts about the Civil Rights Movement and African American history. Martin… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 1-9-2017

  By W. White on January 9, 2017 • ( 5 )

  

  Although I do not write very many posts on Preservation in Mississippi anymore, it is almost a tradition for me to begin the New Year with a News Roundup. It is a way to clear out the old news (generally… Read More ›

• In Memoriam: Roy Harrover (1928-2016)

  By W. White on December 19, 2016 • ( 13 )

  

  In my readings around the Internet, I found the sad news that Memphis architect Roy Harrover passed away on December 13 at the age of 88. Harrover never practiced in Mississippi; he was a Memphis-based architect from 1955 until his… Read More ›

• For Sale: 1323 3rd Avenue, North in Columbus – Save and Restore This House

  By W. White on March 31, 2016 • ( 9 )

  

  This morning’s post was on historic houses that have quietly vanished in Columbus between 2009 and 2013. This post is about an opportunity to keep that fate from happening to another Columbus house. 1323 3rd Avenue, North is currently for… Read More ›

• Four Years, Six Demolitions – Columbus’s Disappearing Historic Buildings Through Google Street View

  By W. White on March 31, 2016 • ( 11 )

  

  I used Google Street View quite a bit to look around Columbus while writing this week’s series of posts on the inaugural 1940 Columbus Pilgrimage. Frankly, the armchair traveler has never had it better, as one can drive the streets… Read More ›

• 1940 Inaugural Columbus Pilgrimage – Star Homes

  By W. White on March 30, 2016 • ( 3 )

  

  This week, in honor of the beginning of this year’s Columbus Spring Pilgrimage, Preservation in Mississippi has been writing about the inaugural Columbus Pilgrimage, held April 14-16, 1940. Monday’s post was a short introduction about the inaugural Pilgrimage, and yesterday’s… Read More ›

• 1940 Inaugural Columbus Pilgrimage – Tour of Homes

  By W. White on March 29, 2016 • ( 22 )

  

  Yesterday, in honor of the beginning of this year’s Columbus Spring Pilgrimage, we had a short introduction to the inaugural Columbus Pilgrimage, held April 14-16, 1940. Today’s post contains information about the twenty-two antebellum homes featured in that inaugural Columbus… Read More ›

• 1940 Inaugural Columbus Pilgrimage

  By W. White on March 28, 2016 • ( 2 )

  

  Today is the start of Columbus’s two-week long Spring Pilgrimage. This makes it the opportune time to look back at the Pilgrimage, in fact, all the way back to the first one, in 1940. The “Program and Historical Facts” book published… Read More ›

• Happy Birthday, Governor William Winter!

  By W. White on February 22, 2016 • ( 2 )

  

  Former Governor William Winter celebrated his 93rd birthday yesterday. One would be hard pressed to name another governor, of any state not just Mississippi, who has advocated and acted for historic preservation as strongly as Governor Winter. In 1954, as… Read More ›

• Lost Mississippi: Andrew Jackson Donelson House

  By W. White on February 3, 2016 • ( 8 )

  

  The Delta is Mississippi’s quintessential plantation landscape, more so than the areas surrounding Natchez, Aberdeen and Columbus, or Holly Springs. However, those places possess an antebellum architectural heritage, derived from the plantation economy, that is second to none. The Delta… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 1-25-2016

  By W. White on January 25, 2016 • ( 5 )

  

  Yes, it is our last News Roundup of January. Just because The X-Files was on TV last night, do not forget that it is January 2016, not January 1996. Once again, the News Roundup is beginning in the southwest part… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 1-18-2016

  By W. White on January 18, 2016 • ( 3 )

  

  Once again, the News Roundup will start in the southwest part of the state, in Natchez. “Tour opens possibilities downtown” states that the Possibilities Tour (which I reported on in the first News Roundup of the year) brought various interested… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 1-11-2016

  By W. White on January 11, 2016 • ( 6 )

  

  This week we are beginning the News Roundup in the non-Natchez Southwestern part of this state, specifically in Brookhaven, which has a few articles of interest. The first Brookhaven Daily Leader article is from January 7, “No longer on the… Read More ›

• Buildings of Mississippi State University–Patterson Engineering Laboratories

  By W. White on January 6, 2016 • ( 18 )

  

  This is the inaugural post in what I hope will be a regular series of posts regarding the buildings of Mississippi State University. I should naturally focus the first post on an important, widely known building of historical prominence such… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 1-4-2016

  By W. White on January 4, 2016 • ( 2 )

  

  Happy New Year to the MissPres community on our first News Roundup of 2016. Some of you may remember that I used to do the News Roundups a few years ago. Doing News Roundups in 2016 is more difficult than… Read More ›

• Restoring Rural Mississippi – Clay County Agricultural High School in Pheba

  By W. White on March 26, 2014 • ( 5 )

  

  For most of Mississippi’s history the state has been very rural in the sense that nearly all Mississippians lived in the countryside or in small towns not in cities. For every Vicksburg, Natchez, and Columbus were twenty or more small… Read More ›

• Fielder & Brooks Drug Store/COFO Building and the Remembrance of the Civil Rights Movement’s Historic Sites

  By W. White on January 27, 2014 • ( 26 )

  

  Last Monday, January 20, was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, during which people in Mississippi and the rest of the nation remember Dr. King and the cause to which he gave his life and for which he lost his life –… Read More ›

• MissPres News Roundup 1-13-2014

  By W. White on January 13, 2014 • ( 0 )

  

  Last week I started the News Roundup on the Coast. This week I am changing things up by starting with the Delta, a difficult prospect since the Delta Democrat Times, The Greenwood Commonwealth, and The Vicksburg Post are all behind… Read More ›