If you like old movies, old cars, and old houses, the Mississippi Heritage Trust has just the event for you, happening this Saturday at the Burrus House in Benoit, MS. As you may recall, the Greek Revival Burrus House, also called… Read More ›
Delta
MissPres News Roundup 11-7-2016
Let’s get caught up on preservation events around the Magnolia State. . . Over in Meridian, WTOK’s headline is “Interior demolition to begin soon on Threefoot Building.” As you recall, Meridian’s Art Deco office skyscraper, buit in 1929, has been… Read More ›
Industrial Mississippi: Greenville Port
Many cities advertised their prime locations in the 1951 Manufacturer’s Record, dedicated to Mississippi’s industrial opportunities, including Greenville and its port. If I’m reading this image on MDOT’s Port of Greenville webpage correctly, it looks like they succeeded in expanding… Read More ›
What’s the deal with the metal silos?
I love driving the back roads of the Mississippi Delta. Even if there aren’t any buildings or people, there’s always the landscape to take pictures of, and the sky. I especially love coming up on agricultural buildings, gins, the rare old… Read More ›
Kremser’s Air Conditioning For Your Comfort, Kremser said.
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 ›
MissPres News Roundup 5-23-2016
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.
Mad Mod Delta Tour Report
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 ›
Greenville Craftsmen “Twins”
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 ›
MissPres News Roundup 11-9-2015
Let’s get right to a few items of note from the past two weeks in our little rainy, finally fall-like part of the world. Up in Holly Springs, work may finally be on the horizon to stabilize the Carnegie Auditorium on… Read More ›
Money Craftsman
In the rural Delta community of Money, and next door to the crumbling Bryant’s Grocery, which became infamous as the beginning of the Emmett Till tragedy in 1955, is the Craftsman-style Ben Roy Service Station. Because the Money Store itself is… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 10-27-2015
Due to an unexpected power outage this weekend, just as I was beginning to think about putting together an overdue news roundup, this roundup is filling Suzassippi’s usual Tuesday slot. Following up on last month’s exciting announcement about a new… Read More ›
MHT Announces Mississippi’s 10 Most Endangered Places for 2015-2016
MHT’s 10 Most Endangered Places unveiling for 2015 came off without a hitch at MHT’s Lowry House, still under construction but looking pretty spiffy. This was the 10th unveiling since the list was introduced in 1999, meaning that we have reached… Read More ›
Tallahatchie Courthouse Is SESAH’s Best of the South
Congratulations to Belinda Stewart Architects and everyone involved in the multi-year restoration of the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner. The project has been awarded the 2015 Best of the South award by the Southeastern Society of Architectural Historians at their latest… Read More ›
Delta State: It’s a two plaque kinda place
I recently came across a 1982 publication entitled Physical Facilities: Delta State University. It’s a great type of document that I think every organization with buildings should be required to prepare and maintain. The publication features all the buildings ever built… Read More ›
Sad News From Lake Washington
This morning, I checked my email to find several quick anguished notes from Delta friends letting me know that our beloved Mt. Holly, long endangered but beautiful even in its decline, was in flames. On Facebook, the group called “Antebellum Mansions of… Read More ›
Duncan, Mississippi: Part 4
Thanks to gstone for the photograph of the Duncan Drug Store, closed since 1965. Try as I might, I have been unable to locate any information about the store. I am sure if you are of a similar age some… Read More ›
Duncan, Mississippi after the 1929 tornado, Part 3
In the concluding edition of the aftermath of the 1929 Duncan tornado, we focus on a family, a child, and a unique culture that has contributed to the Mississippi Delta and beyond. In the Fong family, who operated the Fong Chinese grocery store in Duncan, all but a 4 year old boy, William Joe Fong, perished. Joe Fong and his other children died in the tornado, and Quan Shee Fong died not long after in a Memphis hospital from injuries sustained. She was buried alongside her husband and children in the Greenville Chinese cemetery.
Duncan after the 1929 tornado: Part 2
Last week introduced part 1 of a 3-part series on Duncan, Mississippi after the 1929 tornado destroyed many of the village’s homes and businesses. This week will highlight some of the buildings that were constructed following the tornado. (Note:… Read More ›
Duncan, Mississippi after the 1929 Tornado, Part 1
With little warning, a category F4 tornado swept across the Delta village of Duncan at 2:30 p.m. Monday, February 25, 1929. Two blocks of Main Street businesses (numbering 14 in one report, including a two-story brick hotel) were destroyed. Sources… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 12-8-2014
Modernism tour in Meridian, Holiday Home tour in Leland, county demolitions in Vicksburg, a plea to save the Natchez bluff, and a mannequin named Paulette who greets visitors from her porch in Carrollton.
A Nation in Motion: Robertshaw Co. Plantation at Heathman
The Robertshaw Company Plantation at Heathman, between Leland and Indianola was the site on September 1924 of the fist commercial airplane crop dusting for insect control in the United States.
Preservation Fail Corrected: Eugene P. Booze House
The Eugene P. Booze house, a “two-story American foursquare” with Colonial Revival detailing provides an excellent illustration of preservation fail, and thankfully, correction on inauthentic renovation (Mississippi Department of Archives & History, Historic Resources Inventory). The c. 1910 home in… Read More ›
Documenting the New Deal in Clarksdale: Civic Auditorium
After taking a few weeks off from my might-never-end quest to document all the New Deal Administration properties in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, I was back on the hunt again this week. I was intrigued by this building–the Clarksdale Civic… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 4-29-2013
April is wrapping up quickly – which means that Preservation Month will soon be here. If any Miss Pres readers have events to share for our special month – let us know and we’ll get them on the calendar. One… Read More ›
Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Leland Post Office Mural
The Leland Post Office mural, “Ginnin’ Cotton” by Stuart Purser, is oil on canvas, mounted on paperboard, and was completed 1940 (Smithsonian American Art Museum). Purser’s design was the winning submission for Mississippi in the 48-state mural competition. Purser was… Read More ›