Lauderdale, north of Meridian, saw the construction of a vocational building, and possibly, a community center under the New Deal Administration. MDAH Historic Resources Inventory identifies the Community Center as c. 1935, located on Community House Road. I located one… Read More ›
Building Types
New Lease on Life for Rodney Presbyterian?
For some years, I know we’ve all been watching with interest and concern the semi-ghost town of Rodney and its most prominent landmark, Rodney Presbyterian Church, built in 1829. Frequent floods and constant neglect placed it on one of the… Read More ›
Head Out on the Highway: Miss. 15
Today’s post is the tenth in our reprint of the 1941 publication Mississippi Tourist Guide, which focused on the many attractions along Mississippi’s newly paved highways. (Check out the Intro if you missed it.) Dropping down straight through the predominantly rural sections… Read More ›
Pearl River County Schools: Part II
Last week we looked at some of the Pearl River County rural schools, many of which were consolidated schools, and all of which were white schools. This week presents a look at the schools for African American students under the… Read More ›
Pearl River County Rural Schools: Part I
Discovering Mississippi’s rural Agricultural High Schools first happened when I ran across a cornerstone in Oakland, and thought ‘What is an agricultural high school?’, followed by ‘Why is only the cornerstone left’? I would get the answer to the second… Read More ›
Mississippi Builders: Christian (Chris) Thompson
Today’s post is about a builder from the Coast’s early boom period when Gulfport was first established, and Biloxi’s hotel trade was really taking off. Christian Thompson was a younger brother of Builder/Architect O.E. Thompson. The elder Thompson is likely… Read More ›
New Deal in Mississippi: Coxburg School
Two of the buildings for the Coxburg Consolidated School were constructed with New Deal Administration funding. Holmes County considered a $20,000 bond issue for the Coxburg Consolidated school district to erect, repair, and equip “school buildings and teachers’ home for… Read More ›
An Abbreviated History of the Farmhaven Schools, 1924-1960
In 1930, Farmhaven was a small community “about 14 miles east of Canton on the Canton-Carthage graveled highway.” In 2018, that is Old MS 16/Pat Luckett Road, slightly south of current MS 16. When I began this story, it was… Read More ›
A Look at a Few Historic Buildings in Aberdeen
I do not travel around through Mississippi, going from small town to small town, like I used to. I do not have the time, anymore. Really, who does have the time? It seems like all the preservationists I know are… Read More ›
Head out on the Highway: U.S. 11
Today’s post is the eighth in our reprint of the 1941 publication Mississippi Tourist Guide, which focused on the many attractions along Mississippi’s newly paved highways. (Check out the Intro if you missed it.) Note: In the booklet, the paragraphs about Jones… Read More ›
N. W. Overstreet-designed Alcorn County Courthouse Centennial on October 4
On October 4, the City of Corinth and Alcorn County will hold a centennial celebration for the historic Alcorn County Courthouse, a landmark designed by the dean of all Mississippi architects, Noah Webster Overstreet. That makes this an opportune time… Read More ›
Hill-Burton Before and After: Franklin County Health Dept.
Unlike some of our previous Hill-Burton medical buildings, Franklin County’s 1949 health department in Meadville is easy to find right on the courthouse square, and other than the . . . very red metal roof, it’s very intact to its… Read More ›
HABS in Mississippi: Stealing an Alabama HABS Structure – “Jacinto” Doctor’s Office
A bit of a clickbait title if I am honest, but Mississippi does have one of Alabama’s HABS structures. Located on the Old Tishomingo County Courthouse Square in Jacinto is a diminutive but vividly painted and striking building. Yet almost… Read More ›
Before and After: Poplar Hill School, Jefferson County
The folks who have recently brought back from the brink the one-room Poplar Hill School northwest of Fayette in Jefferson County will be holding an open house and rededication of the building after its recent preservation project on OCTOBER 6th, 2018,… Read More ›
New Deal in Mississippi: Itta Bena Grammar School
Itta Bena citizens met in May 1939 to discuss the proposed new elementary school building. The old Itta Bena school building is being wrecked, preparatory to the building of a new school building to serve that community. (Greenwood Commonwealth, 12 Sep… Read More ›
Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Where are all the early Greenwood Banks?
We’ve previously featured the 1890 Bank of Greenwood and the 1913 Wilson Banking Company on Preservation in Mississippi. Finding details about those bank buildings resulted in somewhat of a scavenger hunt through the newspaper archives and virtual driving around Greenwood. In… Read More ›
Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Former Bank of Greenwood
Continuing with the bank buildings focus, Greenwood’s former Bank of Greenwood sits at the corner of Howard and Ramcat Alley. MDAH calls the c. 1890 building Romanesque and Lloyd Ostby (1980) referred to it as Victorian Romanesque, constructed of brick… Read More ›
I said it was photogenic . . .
In Tuesday’s post about the grant to put a new roof on the New Hope Baptist Church in Estill, I remarked that the towered Gothic Revival building overlooking Deer Creek is one of Mississippi’s photogenic landmarks, and Suzassippi agreed. Then… Read More ›
Two Mississippi Hill-Burton Clinics in Architectural Record
Two Mississippi health clinics funded under the Hill-Burton program were published in the October 1951 issue of Architectural Record, a high honor for our state, which is still often overlooked in the architectural world. The two-page spread focused attention on… Read More ›
Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Wilson Banking Company of Greenwood
The Delta Daily News reported in March 2018 about the planned reopening of the former Wilson Banking Company building–as a bank! On my recent first visit to downtown Greenwood, I stumbled across this beautiful 1913 Beaux Arts building designed by architect Frank… Read More ›
Estill Church Among Delta National Heritage Grantees
The Delta National Heritage Area has announced its 2018 grant awards, and one of the Delta’s most photogenic country churches, New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Estill, has received money for an important bricks-and-mortar preservation project. The clapboard church with… Read More ›
Hill-Burton Before and After: Kemper County Hospital
This week’s Hill-Burton hospital, located over in the tiny county seat of DeKalb, had this eye-catching rendering in New Hospitals and Health Departments for Mississippi, which was published by the Mississippi Commission on Hospital Care around 1950. As you may remember,… Read More ›
Holly Springs landmark damaged in storm
We received word from our friends at Preserve Marshall County and Holly Springs on Sunday that Chalmer’s Institute, an ongoing restoration project, was badly damaged in a storm that passed through Holly Springs on Saturday evening. Stay tuned to PMCHS’s… Read More ›
Friday Film: Taborian Hospital, Mound Bayou
Friday Film: Taborian Hospital
Columbus Marble Works and its architectural culls
It’s an interesting coincidence that this post about the Columbus Marble Works is running the week of Memorial Day, not only because Columbus is a contender as having held the first Decoration Day in 1866, a holiday that later became… Read More ›
Mississippi’s Best Buildings of 1975
This post is a follow up to a series begun a few weeks back that stimulated quite a bit of conversation about the appreciation of buildings from the late 1960s and early 1970s that are now reaching the golden fifty-year mark… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 5-22-2018
Even thought it doesn’t look inviting, let’s jump right into today’s roundup. It is to hot already for this much bad news. To hopefully put everyone in a better mood, I’ve decided to share the bad news first and end with the good news stories.