Remember last week’s postcard showing the Edgewater Hotel’s scenic, wooded beachfront, complete with bridle paths for long horse rides? What happened? Progress, that’s what. This undated postcard, showing the short-lived coexistence of the Edgewater Hotel and the Edgewater Shopping Plaza,… Read More ›
Bruce Goff designed two houses in Mississippi during his career. The Gryder House (1960) in Ocean Springs is a frequent topic here on MissPres. The other Goff design was the Gutman House (1958) in Gulfport. It is likely not as… Read More ›
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 ›
Take a good, long look at this week’s aerial postcard, read Thomas Barnes’ post “The Edgewater Gulf Hotel, Queen of the Coast,” and be sure to check back in next Friday to see this same aerial view from a different… Read More ›
Other than MissPres posts, a house renovation, and walking the dogs, my night-time project for the last year or so has involved going back through my digital photo library and geo-tagging each of the photos, including my scanned postcards. It’s tedious,… Read More ›
“The antebellum Southern plantation house, with its wide verandah and impressive pillars, is no longer the “dream home” of the South. The average Southern home buyer today is looking for a ranch-style house, built of brick, containing at least one pine-panelled room, and in the medium-price range.” Commercial Dispatch, 1953.
Along with the rain we’ve been getting, I’ve been receiving showers of news roundup articles in my inbox. Thanks to all who have shared the stories from their neck of the woods. In Natchez, the City’s Historic Preservation Commission has… Read More ›
It appears that the Day-Brite plant in Tupelo, pictured in the 1951 Mississippi edition of Manufacturer’s Record, not only still survives but–wonder of wonders!–is still a light bulb plant, now Philips Day-Brite (at least as of this Nov. 2013 streetview). Yes, its clerestory… Read More ›
National Register Nomination (Edgar W. Hull House): “The house is of a French, hall-less plan with three rooms set abreast. It has a two-story, seven-bay front gallery, and a loggia and two cabinets at the back. The bricks of the… Read More ›
Today’s Mississippi Streets image of Newman Street, in Hattiesburg’s railroad district, comes courtesy of MissPres reader Thomas Gentry, whose grandfather’s business, Burkett Sheet Metal Works was located on the right (one-story building with the sign painted on the front). Thanks… Read More ›
Up on the north side of Belzoni, near the Varsity Drive-In, is the Green Grove M.B. Church, where the funeral of civil rights leader George Lee was held in 1955. As I was taking the above pictures, I looked across… Read More ›
According to Julie L. Kimbrough’s Images of America: Jackson (p.107), the Powers House was located at 411 Amite Street, right in the heart of downtown. Looking at the 1948 Sanborn map, I was shocked to discover that it was still… Read More ›
Time for a mid-summer checkup, in photographs, on what’s going on in the preservation world of Mississippi.
A couple of weeks ago in the post about outdoor concrete baptistries, “Washed in the Water,” I mentioned that another interesting concrete phenomenon I’ve noticed primarily in African American cemeteries are concrete grave markers. Some are very clearly shaped by… Read More ›
View of this intersection today: HABS Survey number: HABS MS-10 See also: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/ms0002/ Mississippi Historic Resources Database: “This was a long, low, hip-roofed, stuccoed brick building containing a row of offices, each opening to the street.”
This article, published in 1973, reminds us that only 40 years ago, the preservation movement was still so embryonic that no one could figure out how to save Mississippi’s grandest residential street, North State Street (aka U.S. Highway 51), which… Read More ›
Libby Hollingsworth, one of Mississippi’s most passionate and gracious preservationists, died on Saturday, July 2, 2016, at her home in Port Gibson. If you’ve been around the Mississippi Heritage Trust for even just a little bit, you’ve no doubt met Libby… Read More ›
MissPres is on vacation this week, but we’re sending postcards back from Mississippi’s past.
MissPres is on vacation this week, but we’re sending postcards back from Mississippi’s past.
The Library of Congress needs our help! That’s right, our defacto national library, the second largest in the world, has some historic images of Mississippi buildings that are unidentified. These images are the work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, whose 60-year career as… Read More ›
Same view April 2013, courtesy Google Streetview. See other Mississippi Streets: 1920s Yazoo City 1910s Vicksburg 1950s New Albany 1960s Meridian 1930s Camp Shelby 1950s Pascagoula 1960s Neshoba County Fair Drew 1937 Tupelo 1936 Vicksburg 1936 1940s Gulfport 1940s Columbus… Read More ›
Recently, a MissPres reader sent me the link to John Margolies’s obituary. You may not know the name, but if you enjoy mid-century commercial Modernism, you’ve probably seen his images of neon signs, interesting roadside vernacular architecture, and other sites… Read More ›
Comments by architect Bruce Goff about his two Mississippi Coast houses, the groovy Gryder House in Ocean Springs and the spaceship Gutman House in Gulfport. Plus the best construction sign award goes to “We Don’t Like Your House Either.”
From the MDAH Historic Resources Database: A hip-roofed stuccoed building with a projecting distyle portico, the Kingston Methodist Church is a highly significant example of the Greek Revival style. This significance is based on the high degree of architectural finish,… Read More ›
Back in February, Thomas Rosell reported that a team from the Dendrochronology Lab of the Department of Geography and Geology at the University of Southern Mississippi was beginning a dendrochronology study of the de La Pointe-Krebs House, aka Old Spanish Fort, in Pascagoula. While… Read More ›
June 8 is the birth date shared by architects Bruce Goff and Frank Lloyd Wright. While Wright, born in Wisconsin in 1867, is better known, Goff, born in Kansas in 1904, is one of the few architects that Wright would… Read More ›
Today’s page from the 1951 Mississippi edition of Manufacturer’s Record highlights a building that still survives on Highway 80, across from Battlefield Park in Jackson, the former General Electric Lamp and Glass Works. According to the MDAH Historic Resources Database, the… Read More ›
Preservation in Mississippi 