How about a quick News Roundup to ease ourselves back into work and life after what I hope was a (take your pick) quiet/relaxing/exciting/adventuresome/food-filled/family-packed Thanksgiving break in which you slept/worked in the yard/cooked/read/ate/watched football/avoided people/shopped on Black Friday/watched football (did… Read More ›
Oxford
MissPres News Roundup 9-14-2015
Now that the first hints of fall have arrived, I have the energy to look around and see what preservation news is going on in our little postage stamp of the world. First off, if you’re near Rolling Fork tomorrow,… Read More ›
Help build a collection of Mississippi’s Preservation Guidelines
Click here to view the most up-to-date MissPres Collection of Mississippi Preservation Guidelines. Any Mississippi town with a historic preservation commission that oversees a local historic district very likely has a set of design guidelines. These guidelines offer general design and technical recommendations… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 8-24-2015
Events this week: Freen Melrose Tours, Delta Modern, Movie Night. Plus all the Mississippi preservation news that’s fit to print from Oxford to Natchez, from Gulfport to Greenville, and point in between, delivered direct to your computer, tablet, phablet, or other mobile device.
Oxford’s Walton-Young House undergoing exterior repair
Good news for the c.1880 Italianate Walton-Young House on University Avenue: a little TLC for the exterior! The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is supporting the repairs through its Community Heritage Preservation Grant. Architect for the work is Belinda… Read More ›
MissPres News Roundup 2-16-2015
Our President’s Day special edition roundup covers the state from Natchez to Oxford, from Greenwood to Waveland, cheap standardized homes to expensive standardized homes.
Listen Up! Student Art Competition-Silent Dream of Square Books by Conor Hultman
Silent Dream of Square Books by Conor Hultman, Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, Columbus Square Books, under a cozy and comfortable façade, hold the history of human trials and triumph through corridors of the written word, past the covers… Read More ›
Round Buildings from the Air
If you haven’t already, please read today’s important post regarding the recent MDAH Board of Trustees meeting. With several posts on the topic it may not be a surprise that I am a fan of satellite and aerial photography. I’ve… Read More ›
Mississippi Pilgrimage 1974–Oxford
This post is the eighth in a series reprinting the Mississippi Pilgrimage booklet of 1974. See also Natchez Holly Springs Columbus Woodville Hattiesburg and Gulf Coast Vicksburg
Did Grant sleep here?
From up Oxford way, the Daily Journal reported February 5 that “site of a potential jail expansion may have unappreciated importance to both Civil War history and Jewish history.” Asher Reese has requested the property be designated for a Jewish… Read More ›
Preservation Fail: Beta Theta Pi House
There is an interesting (sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, but generally always disastrous) site called Preservation Fail that I have been following for a while. Apparently, no geographic area holds dibs on preservation failures, and every time I would see one… Read More ›
Architectural Triplets: Marshall, Lafayette, and Hardeman County Courthouses
Months ago as I was driving through Bolivar, Tennessee for the first time, I passed the courthouse square. Taken aback by the building, I exclaimed, “I think that courthouse was designed by the same architect as the one in Holly… Read More ›
New Deal in Mississippi: Faculty Housing
The last–literally, the last house still standing–of the New Deal Administration-funded projects we will visit on the campus of the University of Mississippi is faculty housing. Using primarily Works Progress Administration funds (Gerald Walton, The University of Mississippi: A Pictorial History, 2008), 22… Read More ›
New Deal in Mississippi: Weir Memorial Hall
Built as the new Student Union Building in 1939, Weir Memorial Hall was designed by R. W. Naef in Greek Revival style (Mississippi Department of Archives & History/Historic Resources Inventory database). Walter L. Perry Construction Company of Philadelphia, Mississippi… Read More ›
New Deal in Mississippi: Somerville and Barnard Halls
Somerville Hall and Barnard Hall are the final two dormitories built with New Deal Administration funds on the campus of the University of Mississippi. They were not the final buildings–we still have a few more to go, including one that… Read More ›
The New Deal in Mississippi: Hedleston, Mayes, and Garland Halls
Along with three other new dormitories, Garland, Hedleston, and Mayes Halls were dedicated October 21-22, 1938 (Gerald W. Walton. 2008. The University of Mississippi: A Pictorial History. Nashville, TN: The Booksmith Group). Built with funds from the Federal Emergency Administration of Public… Read More ›
MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Quoins
Time for another MissPres AWOTW! I gathered up a couple of definitions to help fully define our word this week. Some of our examples photos come from the MDAH HRI database. The Elements of Style by Stephen Calloway and Elizabeth… Read More ›
Leavell Hall: Another “Dog” of a Building?
In the quest to document all the PWA-funded buildings on the University of Mississippi campus, here is yet another of the contributions to campus made by the New Deal administration of President Roosevelt. A few weeks back, a reader referred… Read More ›
New Deal on UM Campus: Kennon Observatory
…conditions in Mississippi were worse than at any time since the Civil War (Harry Hopkins, 1936, Spending to Save: The Complete Story of Relief). With a state government in bankruptcy, Mississippi welcomed the federal funds that finally began to trickle down… Read More ›
Deupree’s Historic Homes: Jacob Thompson’s Home
Today’s post is a reprint from Mrs. N.D. Deupree’s “Some Historic Homes of Mississippi,” from Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Vol. VI (1902). Jacob Thompson’s Home Among the historic homes of Mississippi in ante-bellum days there were none more… Read More ›
Lewis Hall: The New Deal on the UM Campus
Ya’ll all know I’ve been fascinated the past few months with the New Deal architecture. I was recently lunching with a history professor and telling her about this new passion and she exclaimed, “I was shaped by the New Deal!”… Read More ›
Village Apartments: Mid-century surviving on Ole Miss campus
Whether you call it a masonry screen or a concrete block screen, I sort of fell in love with them first when Malvaney (not the original) wrote In Praise of Masonry Screens. Then, Thomas Rosell whetted my appetite with a little Screen… Read More ›
Updating two MissPres Architectural Words of the Week
If you are like me you are always searching for examples of past MissPres Architectural Words of the Week. I recently found two that will hopefully get all y’all’s creative juices flowing for the weekend. The Standard Oil Building in… Read More ›
Preservation Grants Awarded by MDAH
We’ll have our regular News Roundup on Monday, but this was a story that we wanted to single out to share with the MissPres world. Thanks to our friends at MDAH for allowing us to share this release – and… Read More ›
Oxfordtown, Oxfordtown . . .
We don’t have a subscription to the digital Oxford Eagle edition, but our Oxford friends have been rumbling recently about a preservation issue that’s been in the news. The controversy sprang from a demolition request for an 1890 Queen Anne… Read More ›
The Living New Deal Project
The Living New Deal Project, University of California-Berkeley, is an ambitious project with two primary goals: to map and describe every New Deal Project in the United States in one location, easily accessible to people, and to publicize how we… Read More ›
Suzassippi’s Mississippi: Rowan Oak
Rowan Oak, the home of William Faulkner from 1930 until his death in 1962, ranked number 1 on the Oxford-Holly Springs regional poll results for the 101 Places in Mississippi to see before you die list. I actually made it… Read More ›