A while back I stumbled onto a website called “Defining Downtown at Mid-Century: The Architecture of the Bank Building & Equipment Corporation of America.” A part of the Recent Past Network, the site aims to bring attention to the thousands… Read More ›
Building Types
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Entablature
This is our fifth MissPres Architectural Word of the Week. As we move right along through the alphabet, you can check out our past words here. Have you been keeping an eye out for these elements like I have? Having… Read More ›
Abandoned: Vaughan, Mississippi
Recently I decided to take the Vaughan exit off I-55 to see how this little hamlet was doing. It’s been a while since I was through, maybe 2004 or 2005, but even then it seemed like things were slipping away…. Read More ›
Seeing the MissPres 101 Places and Asking Questions
Tom Freeland at the North Mississippi Commentor has jumped on the road to his old haunts in southwest Mississippi to see a good chunk of the sites on the recently published 101 Mississippi Places to See Before You Die. So on… Read More ›
Mississippi Architect, June 1964: Gilfoy School of Nursing
The featured building in Mississippi Architect’s June 1964 issue was the Gilfoy Nursing School at Baptist Hospital in Jackson. In last week’s post about the endangered Rexall Drug Store on North State Street across from Baptist, I noted that the… Read More ›
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Dentil
This is our fourth MissPres Architectural Word of the Week. We are moving right along through the alphabet with our past words having been Abacus, Bracket, and Corbel. Have you been keeping an eye out for these elements like I… Read More ›
Hints of Segregation Past
Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away I wrote a post about the layers of history we can see in our architecture by looking at the backs and sides of buildings. That post “Where History Meets Architecture” was about… Read More ›
Molitor’s Mississippi: February 11, 1954
This week we are following Architectural Photographer Joseph Molitor on the 58th anniversary of his 1954 trip. Today is the last day of our three-blog-postings trip through Mississippi with Mr. Molitor. According to Columbia University’s Avery Library Archive, by Thursday… Read More ›
Molitor’s Mississippi: February 8-10, 1954
This week we are following Architectural Photographer Joseph Molitor on the 58th anniversary of his 1954 trip to Mississippi. Molitor’s collection of photos, now at the Columbia University Avery Library in New York, forms an important documentary of what the… Read More ›
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Corbel
This is our third MissPres Architectural Word of the Week. If you missed any of the earlier posts, this series was spawned by Malvaney’s post about architectural dictionaries. Our past two words have been Abacus and Bracket. Have you been… Read More ›
Biloxi’s Blighted Banking Buildings Blowup (not really but they are getting demolished)
JRGordon first reported on the city of Biloxi’s blighted property list back in an early November round-up. The list is starting to generate either repairs or demolitions as reported recently by the Sun Herald. While most buildings on the list… Read More ›
Corinth Machinery Building, 1869-2012
As JRGordon noted in last week’s News Roundup, the long-abandoned and highly endangered Corinth Machinery Building, built in 1869, suffered a large partial collapse in that weekend’s heavy storms. As you might remember from a post back in January 2010,… Read More ›
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Bracket
This is our second MissPres Architectural Word of the Week. If you missed out on our first post, this series was spawned by Malvaney’s post about architectural dictionaries. I thought it would be fun to have a bi-weekly post that… Read More ›
Abandoned Mississippi: Port Gibson Oil Works
The abandoned plant of the Mississippi Cotton Oil Company wasn’t on the recent Port Gibson Holiday Home Tour, but as I was wandering about before the tours started, I was drawn to the place, just north of downtown, like a… Read More ›
Mississippi Architect, May 1964: Gulde Methodist Church
A simple Modern rural church was the featured Mississippi building in the May 1964 issue of the Mississippi Architect. ——————————————————————– GULDE METHODIST CHURCH Rankin County, Miss. CLEMMER & CLARK, A.I.A. Architects Jackson, Miss. R.D. MOON Contractor Pelahatchie, Miss. THIS rural… Read More ›
Going Inside: St. Joseph Catholic Church and its Blue Glow
It’s a nice coincidence that in the same week as an update on Jackson’s First Christian Church we should look at the interior of Port Gibson’s St. Joseph Catholic Church. Built almost exactly 100 years apart, these two buildings might be… Read More ›
Is that a hole in First Christian?
Just before the New Year, MissPres reader “M” (who, I’m told, is a first cousin twice removed from James Bond’s “Q”), alerted us in a comment left on “Friends We Lost in 2011” that there appears to be a large… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 1-17-2012
Wow! We’re already into the 3rd week of January. I know our friends at MDAH are busy this week – National Register Nominations will be considered at their Review Board meeting on Thursday and their Board of Trustees meets Friday… Read More ›
Martin Luther King, Jr. in Philadelphia, Miss.
From the Downtown Philadelphia Historic District nomination, recounting the civil rights march led by Martin Luther King, Jr., in Philadelphia. Held on June 21, 1966, the march from Independence Quarters, a large black neighborhood west of the railroad, to the… Read More ›
First Ever MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Abacus
How many times have you looked at a building and said “What is that thing called? The one thingy above the dew-dad, next to the whats it.” Well if you’re me the answer is a lot! So after reading Malvaney’s… Read More ›
Tanks for the Memories -or- Travelling by Tank in Mississippi
Last month we finished Frank Brooks’ book Travelling by Trolley in Mississippi, our chapter-a-week Thursday feature for most of the late summer and fall. Recently in response to those posts, reader Leroy W. Demery Jr. has been sharing some of… Read More ›
Going Inside: Port Gibson’s First Presbyterian
We’ve all heard about the Hand Pointing To Heaven that tops the steeple of Port Gibson’s First Presbyterian Church and most of have probably seen it while driving down Church Street, but the interior of the church is worth looking… Read More ›
The Possibilities Abound…The Robert E. Lee Hotel in Jackson
With all of the hype and hoopla over the summertime smash hit the Help, the many references to the old Robert E. Lee Hotel might set people to wondering about the place. Visitors to downtown Jackson might be forgiven for the… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 1-3-2012
Happy New Year MissPres! I was on vacation for the holidays – but preservation in the news kept going (and thanks to Malvaney and Theodore who helped make sure I didn’t miss these stories while I was gone). Unfortunately, the… Read More ›
National Register 2011–Individual Listings
As in previous years, we’re breaking our National Register of Historic Places listings for 2011 into two separate posts to avoid piling on and to allow you time to read through the summaries and ponder. Some of these listings have… Read More ›
Merry Christmas 2011
The current Biloxi City Hall was built as the U.S. Federal Building in 1905-08. The city acquired the building from the federal government in 1960 after the New Federal Building in Biloxi was completed. In my opinion it is the… Read More ›
Belhaven University’s Fitzhugh Hall Endangered
Word has come from Belhaven University in Jackson this week about disturbing recent structural shifts in the East Wing of their iconic Fitzhugh Hall. Built in 1911, the building was significantly rebuilt and altered after a 1927 fire. Now the… Read More ›