Whenever I go up toward Oxford, I like to check in on the Bynum School off the beaten track in Panola County. I’ve been around to lots of places that used to have Rosenwald schools, and as far as I… Read More ›
Building Types
The Gavel Pounds for the Eola
The Eola Hotel in downtown Natchez is heading for the auction block in November (“Eola Hotel on Auction Block,” Natchez Democrat, Sept. 25, 2009). While this may appear to be cause for alarm, it may well be cause for celebration… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 9-25-2009
Well, there’s just too much preservation news to keep up with this week, so as of today the MissPres vacation is officially over. Sept. 11, 2009: According to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, perhaps better known to you savvy online… Read More ›
A Celebration and a Vacation
To celebrate passing the milestone of 10,000 views on the blog, which happened around 3 PM last Thursday (did anyone but me notice?), MissPres is taking a little vacation this week. Everybody deserves a little time off, right? And just in case… Read More ›
Remembering the Heidelberg
Mississippi State University Digital Archive CHARM Collection. Rand Clayton Papers. Photographer unknown. Taken 1963- date of subject is likely earlier. The image has been colorized. B/W original The Hotel Heidelberg was a fixture on Capitol Street for fifty five years. The … Read More ›
King Edward Update
And now, what you’ve all been waiting for . . . As mentioned several times in the last week, one of the prime attractions at this year’s 10 Most Endangered List Unveiling was a chance to peak inside the King… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 9-11-2009
Another Friday, another MissPres News Roundup, just like clockwork, even though I’ve had a long and arduous week. This week’s featured song is “Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen.” August something: An article in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that I initially… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 9-4-2009
The official sponsor of this week’s News Roundup is White Shoes: Wear ’em While You Can. Well, after spending the last two weeks on the Coast, we have to bring ourselves back to reality and acknowledge that the rest of the… Read More ›
Katrina Survivors: Randolph School, Pass Christian
Randolph School (1928), Pass Christian, photo courtesy Fisk University Rosenwald Fund Card File Database Across the Coast, the railroad tracks formed a levee that protected the neighborhoods to the north from the massive storm surge of Hurricane Katrina. Waveland and… Read More ›
Lost to Katrina (etc.): East Ward School (1921-2008)
The Mississippi Coast has such a rich 19th-century history that sometimes the 20th century gets short shrift, and maybe the fate of East Ward School, built in 1921 and designed in an eclectic combination of the Prairie and Craftsman styles… Read More ›
Lost to Katrina: Pass Christian Town Library (c.1853-2005)
From “Project Description, Pass Christian Town Library & School,” by the Pass Christian Historical Society, 2003: ‘Mrs. Roosevelt was so much impressed with your library she made me go around to see it myself. You are doing just the kind… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 8-21-2009
The official song for this week’s News Roundup is . . . “Cocacabana.” Begin humming as we whirl around the state of MS: The Summer 2009 issue of “The Wellspring” (scroll to page 5) gives a nice update on the progress… Read More ›
Abandoned Mississippi: Yazoo County Agricultural High School
In 1912 the Yazoo County Agricultural High School was located at Benton, and it is one of the largest and best of its kind in the state. [A] few years later a Consolidated High School was located here, graveled roads… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 8-14-09
Well, what’s been going on this week around our fair state? Before we begin, let me just put this fact out there: August is my least favorite month, so I’m liable to be especially cranky and hard-to-please, so bear with… Read More ›
The International Style: Regularity, not Symmetry
Since I spend a good part of my life writing and reading descriptions of buildings, I naturally love symmetrical buildings. It’s so easy and simple to describe, say a Georgian Revival building, even a big building: center entrance with transom… Read More ›
The International Style: Volume, not Mass
For me, the last concept to click about Hitchcock and Johnson’s definition of the International style was the subject of the very first chapter, “A First Principle: Architecture as Volume.”
Book Quotes: The International Style
It’s been a while since we did a book quote series, and since the three earlier series included a diatribe against Modern planning principles (Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of the Great American Cities), a polemic against Modern architectural design (Tom Wolfe’s… Read More ›
An Architectural Bonanza in the Clarion-Ledger
Was I in heaven this weekend? Was it a dream? I think there were not one, not two, but three really informative articles about architecture in the Clarion-Ledger. I know I usually leave such things to Friday’s News Roundup, but… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 8-7-2009
Well, get out your event calendars, Ladies and Gentlemen, because we’ve got a lot of ’em coming up announced in the last week or two: August 25, 2009 will find you sitting impatiently in front of the television, with your antenna… Read More ›
Lost Mississippi: Benton Elementary School
You may remember from Monday’s post “Mississipp’s Outstanding Post-War Schools” that the elementary school at Benton in Yazoo County was included in a list of Mississippi’s best school buildings constructed between 1945 and 1951. I also noted that this particular building was no… Read More ›
Back from Lexington
In yesterday’s post, we drove up Hwy 17 and got into Lexington where we saw the courthouse, the jail, the hospital, and the old stagecoach inn. Today we’ll complete our whirlwind tour by heading out from the square and looking at… Read More ›
To Lexington (Miss.) and Back
Well, I haven’t done a “To . . . and Back” posting of late, mainly because when summer really comes in, I usually don’t get much farther (or is it “further”?) than my front porch–anything else just takes too much… Read More ›
Mississippi’s Outstanding Post-War Schools
It’s totally normal (I’m sure you would agree) to collect books like American School and University, and as I was flipping through the 1950-51 (22nd annual) edition, I came across a chapter called “America’s Outstanding School Buildings (built since 1945).”… Read More ›
Campus Research Resources
Last week, our crack researcher Carunzel, referenced the “CIC Historic Campus Architecture Project (HCAP)” in a reply to Day 3 of the contest, Woodworth Chapel at Tougaloo College. It reminded me of that website, which I am now including in the… Read More ›
Old Newspaper Clippings: Saving the Madison County Courthouse
A group of dedicated researchers in Canton has put together a notebook of newspaper clippings and other primary source materials titled “Madison County History Preserved,” and I was fortunate enough to have a colleague show it to me. Glancing through it,… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 7-24-09
Here’s some goings-on that you might find interesting. July 12, 2009: An obituary in the Hays (FL) Daily News for architect and planner Raymond L. Eaton, who died July 7, 2009. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Eaton was a partner… Read More ›
July09 Name This Place #5–Who Will Win?
To recap: Joseph A grabbed an early lead with Monday’s spot-on identification of the Washington County Courthouse in Greenville. But then doakley, obviously a morning person, jumped into the fray and took the lead with a win each of the next… Read More ›
Preservation in Mississippi 