Today’s guest post is brought to you by Jennifer Baughn, Chief Architectural Historian with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. I hope her report on the recent successful project at Mt. Moriah School will provide a brighter vision for… Read More ›
I’ve finally gotten around to reading a book that’s been on my shelf waiting for a while, Crabgrass Frontier by Kenneth T. Jackson. Not a traditional architectural history, the book does explain alot about how American cities and suburbs came… Read More ›
As you may recall from a News Roundup in June, the Gothic Revival-style Capitol Street Church of Christ suffered a fire that apparently started from a lightning strike. At the time, the Clarion-Ledger article mentioned that the primary damage was… Read More ›
I was up in the Delta in mid-September and was surprised, although in retrospect I shouldn’t have been, to see that the cotton harvest was well underway. After reading up about it, I realized that the extremely early, long and… Read More ›
Last week the Department of Archives and History held a public meeting in the Pineville Community just north of Pass Christian to discuss a new historic district along Menge Avenue. The meeting was held at Oak Crest on Menge Avenue, a 1920 two-story Neoclassical manor that now… Read More ›
A while back, in the middle of our frigid winter, I posted about two architectural twins I had run across in travels around the state, schools based on plans published in the early 1920s by the state department of education… Read More ›
A reader who took a special interest in the Ceres Plantation story a few weeks ago headed over to the state archives building to do a little digging into the history of the place. After picking through the WPA records… Read More ›
After this week of almost constant rain, I suggest we pass a law allowing the whole country to stay home during such weeks. The rain is pleasant if you can stay home and lounge about, but tiresome when you have to… Read More ›
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 ›
On Tuesday (7-13), the South Delta Regional Housing Authority (SDRHA), a quasi-governmental agency located in Leland and apparently funded solely or mostly through the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), demolished the oldest house in Greenville, a building… Read More ›
One of my personal landmarks on Hwy. 98, just before you get to the Lucedale exit(s), is the Bexley School, a small frame building standing off on a red-dirt hill on the north side of the highway. At first glance,… Read More ›
I know this isn’t a particularly preservationist thing to say, but one of the things I love to do is find abandoned places and explore and take photographs of them. I guess part of it is the thrill of discovery,… Read More ›
Well, I should know better than to write a positive post because sure enough, there’s always bad news following behind it. That’s why I tell kids, “Be a pessimist–you’ll never be disappointed!” Anyway, after yesterday’s good news about the Mannsdale-Livingston… Read More ›
I know, I know, most people, including me, don’t equate the upscale suburban sprawl that is Madison County with preservation, but in fact, the preservationists who have banded together to protect the rural community of Mannsdale-Livingston, now being pulled into… Read More ›
I’ve been up to the Delta recently, all the way to Clarksdale. I love going to the Delta–any time of year, it’s always interesting and it seems to have a certain light that makes it all seem more lush. People… Read More ›
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself standing in the Spring sunlight at a farm in northern Mississippi along with a few other people. The matter at hand was whether the site, containing a modest ranch house, a wood… Read More ›
One of my many readers pointed me toward a really good article at Planetizen by Roberta Brandes Gratz of the Project for Public Spaces. The article, called “Citizen Recovery Efforts Hit Government Barriers in New Orleans” is about the trials of re-building… Read More ›
This is the last post in our series on Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities. I hope you’ve enjoyed it–if not, well, it’s over now. I have remembered so many good parts as I’ve gone back through the book,… Read More ›
Number 4 in our series on Jane Jacobs’ seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In the chapter titled “The Need for Old Buildings” Jane Jacobs argues that, apart from any architectural considerations, every neighborhood needs a mixture… Read More ›
“Gentrification” is a word that we preservationists have thrown at us alot. And unlike other arguments against preservation (such as “there’s just too many old buildings around here for the young folks”), gentrification is one that I believe has merit… Read More ›
Jacobs’ in-depth observation of her own city, New York, has stuck with me, and this passage from the chapter “The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety” is one that I often recall in particular when I watch my own, much less urban street…. Read More ›
From time to time, either because I’m lazy or because I’m exceptionally clever, I will post a week-long series on a certain topic. This week, our inaugural series will be quotations from Jane Jacob’s classic The Death and Life of Great… Read More ›
A reader contacted me about a house north of Natchez that is very important to Mississippi’s history but that needs some tender loving care to be restored to its former glory. The house was built in 1854 and is a fine… Read More ›
Here’s sending good thoughts to Carr Central–an amazing 1920s school and Vicksburg landmark. I still don’t understand why the historic preservation tax credits amounting to, I think, 45% of the total cost, aren’t enough to get this project going, but… Read More ›
If you get off the interstate at Vaiden and go about 7 miles on the highway, then turn onto a paved county road and go another 7 miles, turn right onto a gravel road for a mile or so, then… Read More ›
On a whim, I took advantage of this fine February Friday to take a jaunt up to Columbus and see a few sites and meet a few people. Columbus isn’t as old as Natchez, but by the 1850s, Columbus had enough fine… Read More ›
All this has happened before, and will happen again. At least that’s what I’ve learned from 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica, along with lots of impenetrable mythology. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that Modernism has come back around. To me, the resurrection… Read More ›
Preservation in Mississippi 