Strangely enough for a National Historic Landmark (and one of the 101 Mississippi Places To See Before You Die), we really don’t appear to have great information about the construction of Oakland Chapel at Alcorn State University. Originally built as… Read More ›
As a way of commemorating the 47th anniversary of Hurricane Camille this week, let’s look back at two structures that are prominent features of the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s skyline. While it is apparent that disaster shapes our physical environment in what is lost, as… Read More ›
Last week’s post regarding the rise in popularity for modern & ranch houses throughout the South brought up the question, when did air conditioning become a standard feature in home construction? Kremser’s Sheet Metal Works was apparently one of the first local… Read More ›
“The antebellum Southern plantation house, with its wide verandah and impressive pillars, is no longer the “dream home” of the South. The average Southern home buyer today is looking for a ranch-style house, built of brick, containing at least one pine-panelled room, and in the medium-price range.” Commercial Dispatch, 1953.
National Register Nomination (Edgar W. Hull House): “The house is of a French, hall-less plan with three rooms set abreast. It has a two-story, seven-bay front gallery, and a loggia and two cabinets at the back. The bricks of the… Read More ›
According to Julie L. Kimbrough’s Images of America: Jackson (p.107), the Powers House was located at 411 Amite Street, right in the heart of downtown. Looking at the 1948 Sanborn map, I was shocked to discover that it was still… Read More ›
View of this intersection today: HABS Survey number: HABS MS-10 See also: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/ms0002/ Mississippi Historic Resources Database: “This was a long, low, hip-roofed, stuccoed brick building containing a row of offices, each opening to the street.”
The Library of Congress needs our help! That’s right, our defacto national library, the second largest in the world, has some historic images of Mississippi buildings that are unidentified. These images are the work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, whose 60-year career as… Read More ›
From the MDAH Historic Resources Database: A hip-roofed stuccoed building with a projecting distyle portico, the Kingston Methodist Church is a highly significant example of the Greek Revival style. This significance is based on the high degree of architectural finish,… Read More ›
Mississippi architecture is about to get its due on the Society of Architectural Historians’ online database, Archipedia.
June 8 is the birth date shared by architects Bruce Goff and Frank Lloyd Wright. While Wright, born in Wisconsin in 1867, is better known, Goff, born in Kansas in 1904, is one of the few architects that Wright would… Read More ›
According to the MDAH Historic Resources Database: “Hope Farm is thought to have been constructed in the late 18th century, making it one of the oldest buildings remaining in the state. It is believed that the house was constructed by… Read More ›
New Orleans architect Rathbone DeBuys has been mentioned many times over the years here on MissPres, but recently I was surprised to see we have never had a feature post dedicated to his work in Mississippi. This was something I had not discovered until I found… Read More ›
Unlike yesterday’s Rice-Stix Factory in Water Valley, you won’t have a chance to visit today’s featured building when you attend next week’s ListenUp! preservation conference. Probably designed and built by architect Gustavus M. Torgerson in 1876, the eclectic, Second Empire-style… Read More ›
From Ingomar Mound to Prospect Hill Plantation, from parapets falling to gravestones standing up and “Wade” handwritten on a sill, the MissPres news roundup has got it covered.
If you missed it, or if last week’s History Is Lunch series presentation by Michael Fazio has you hankering for more N.W. Overstreet, below is a brief biography of Mississippi’s homegrown architect from a 1928 publication with the long winded title From Mississippi Today :… Read More ›
I know nothing about this gorgeous two-story clapboard house in the little town of Gloster down in Amite County, except that I screeched to a halt in the middle of the street when I saw it and took these pictures… Read More ›
A while back, I was reading a well-done, glossy history of Hattiesburg’s early neighborhoods, Historic Hattiesburg: History & Architecture of Hattiesburg’s First Neighborhoods (Department of Planning & Community Development, Neighborhood Development Division, City of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. n.d.), and I noticed a sidebar about Hattiesburg’s… Read More ›
HABS Survey Number: HABS MS-150 See also: HABS webpage Mississippi Historic Resources Database: “The Presbyterian Manse is one of the most significant Federal-style houses in Mississippi and exhibits the quality of architectural finish that is usually indicative of a full-scale mansion.”
Today’s post is brought to you by our inveterate architectural tourist, Neel Reid, who also reported on last year’s Mad Mod Eastover tour. ————————————————— It’s easy to overlook Modernist commercial architecture. Coming into a world where cars dictate the layout… Read More ›
We’ve previously had a brief introduction to architect George F. Barber here on MissPres. Barber, who lived in Knoxville, TN from 1888 until his death in 1915, did a significant mail order plan business across the United States. The Knox County… Read More ›
From Tupelo to Vicksburg, from Philadelphia to Jackson and down to Natchez, and even over in Arkansas (!) here’s (almost) all the Mississippi preservation news that’s fit to print.
HABS Survey number: HABS MS-54 See also: HABS website Mississippi Historic Resources Database–see this especially for an extended discussion of the Andrew Jackson/Springfield controversy. For an introduction to the HABS program in Mississippi: Cataloguing HABS in Mississippi, Part 1 Cataloguing… Read More ›
In 1953, the fourth annual conference of the Gulf States Region of American Institute of Architects was held in Biloxi, on Sept. 17-19. The theme of the conference was “Serving the People of the New South Through Architectural Progress” and there was a strong focus… Read More ›
I’m deep in the middle of a months-long project to geo-code my photo library, and it’s been a sometimes tedious, but often fun exercise in re-discovering pictures I took a while back and intended to do something with but then… Read More ›
In last week’s series, “Cataloguing HABS in Mississippi,” Virginia Price introduced us to the Historic American Buildings Survey, begun in the 1930s, and explained how the federal program worked in Mississippi. Architect A. Hays Town, later known for his creative… Read More ›
The heretofore untold story of rampaging Ridgelanders, marauding Madisonians, Piazza del Ruth’s Chris, the true orgin of the Washington Monument, hippocamps, and more! Plus, did Michaelangelo visit Renaissance?
Preservation in Mississippi 