A few weekends back I made a day trip to Hattiesburg to check out the progress made on the adaptive reuse projects of the Carter and Ross buildings. I had been wanting to check these two projects out in person… Read More ›
Historic Preservation
Streets and Numbers and Municipal Identity
Have you ever thought about street numbers and how they came to be? If so, check out this article from Preservation in Print’s October 2012 issue, “Addressing Urban Disorder” by Richard Campanella: The number on your door may seem like… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 1-28-2013
Can you believe that it’s the last week of January already? Pretty soon, we’ll be talking about Spring Pilgrimages around the state. We’ve had a ton of news since our last round up – so away we go. We’re going… Read More ›
MissPres Word of the Week: Window
In January 2012 Malvaney ask us in the post entitled “When You Absolutely Positively Have to Know What’s a Volute?” to share our favorite definition of a volute. In that spirit I’ll ask y’all to share a definition of the word… Read More ›
Newspaper Clippings: Old Capitol’s First Restoration
Today’s peek back into the newspaper archives reminds us of when the stucco was taken off during the Capitol’s first “restoration,” billed as the “most accurate humanly possible” by the interior designer Earl Hart Miller.
Former First Christian Church: The Windows of Amory
Erected in 1926, the former First Christian Church of Amory was designed in an Eclectic/Composite style (Mississippi Department of Archives & History, Historic Resources Inventory database). The building still retains its 14 foot tin-covered ceiling, and original stained glass. According… Read More ›
Webster County Courthouse Burns
We heard early yesterday that the Webster County Courthouse in the tiny town of Walthall caught fire around 2:30 AM and was not completely under control until 7 o’clock. Tom Freeland at the North Mississippi Commenter posted an update yesterday afternoon. Preservation architect… Read More ›
Architectural Twins? Eaton and Walthall Schools, Hattiesburg
Schools are structures that are often duplicated from one set of plans, as seen in some of Malvaney’s early Architectural Twins posts (January 14, 2010 & July 14, 2010). The school board of Hattiesburg was no different when they hired… Read More ›
Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Houston Post Office Mural
Of the twenty-eight works of art placed in Mississippi’s federal buildings under the New Deal federal art programs, only three were created by Mississippi artists–a fact not uncontested by Mississippians (Patti Carr Black, 1998, Art in Mississippi, 1720-1980). Byron Burford,… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 1-14-2013
News is still a bit slow in the new year – but we still uncovered enough for our second round up of the year. Starting this week down in Natchez where The Democrat covered the latest push for an oil… Read More ›
MissPres Word of the Week: Pigeonhole Corner
“…working on catching up on my photo organization, and found this picture of a corner on Murrah Hall at Millsaps. Don’t know the term for it although I probably should…”
Architectural Twins: Natchez’s Legitimate Siblings?
In my post “Happy Hanukkah Y’all” one of the buildings featured was the Gerard Brandon V house designed by the firm Weiss, Dreyfous, & Seiferth. It’s a handsome house that I had seen before but never really studied before writing… Read More ›
Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Amory Post Office Mural
During the Great Depression, murals were commissioned for federal, state, and local buildings by the federal government in what has been called …the most innovative and comprehensive program for government patronage in American history. (Parks & Markowitz, 1984, p. 5, as… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 1-7-2013
Not a lot of news since our last round-up of 2012 – well not a lot of preservation news anyway. Here are a couple of stories I did come across to start your new year. Up in Tupelo, we had… Read More ›
Sam Kaye, noted architect/preservationist, dead at 72
Originally posted on Local History Announcements:
The Commercial Dispatch By: Carmen K. Sisson January 3, 2013 Sam Kaye Sam Kaye, noted as one of the state’s leading historic preservationists, died Tuesday, leaving a legacy that his friends and colleagues say…
Mississippi’s Connection to the New York Public Library
Before we get back to our regular programming next week, I thought I might catch up with a few interesting tidbits I’ve come across in my news reading over the holidays. If you’re a new reader, you might not catch… Read More ›
2012 in review
As they did last year, WordPress.com, which hosts this and millions of other blogs, helpfully put together a 2012 annual report. Here’s an excerpt: About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 170,000 times in 2012…. Read More ›
National Register Historic Districts 2012
As you know, National Register listings can be either individual places, as shown in yesterday’s post, or larger groupings of buildings known as historic districts. Historic districts can be as small as a handful of houses in a rural community… Read More ›
National Register Listings (Individual) 2012
The National Park Service oversees the National Register of Historic Places, the most popular tool nationally for recognizing historic properties. According to the NPS: The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy… Read More ›
Auld Lang Syne: Mississippi Places Lost in 2012
We lost some very old friends this year and some friends we hardly had a chance to meet. The list is shorter than last year’s, but still contains some significant places that we will no longer have around. As usual,… Read More ›
Historic Buildings in Mobile Damaged in Christmas Tornadoes
Several of Mobile, Alabama’s historic buildings were damaged in the tornadoes that swept through in the nasty weather on Christmas Day, including Murphy High School, Springhill Avenue Temple, and Trinity Episcopal Church. Keep up with updates at al.com.
2012 MissPres AWOTW Roundup
Believe it or not we’ve made it through the entire alphabet. With 26 terms, and 38 words containing 92 syllables, we touched on 100 structures in 43 towns in 32 Mississippi counties. I skipped over having a AWOTW for the letter X since… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 12-21-12
Yes – it’s Friday and we’re doing a news roundup. No – the world did not end. With the holidays and our annual “Year in Review” posts over the next week or so, we figured we’d do one last roundup… Read More ›
Mississippi’s Eagle
As a preface to this post, you might want to read an earlier post on the USS Mississippi figurehead and the new USS Mississippi submarine: USS Mississippi Past and Present.” If you’ve had occasion to wander around the New Capitol… Read More ›
Cemetery Workshop Follow-up
After a couple of heavy news weeks, this past one was pretty light again. Instead of our usual Monday News Round-up then, we have a guest post from Vicki Myers – one of our friends at the Mississippi Department of… Read More ›
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: ZigZag Molding
This is our last MissPres Architectural Word of the Week for 2012! Whether you are crying tears of sadness or joy you can check out any previous words here. As always our example photographs come from the MDAH Historic Resources… Read More ›
The Buena Vista and a Hyperbolic Parabaloid that should have been
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy I was glad to see that the Wildwoods Shore Resort Historic District in New Jersey made it through relatively unscathed. This got me thinking about some of our lost motels on the Mississippi… Read More ›
Preservation in Mississippi 