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Katrina Gratit Program Winding Down
This circa 1915-1920 cottage in the Turkey Creek Historic District was owned by the Rev. Calvin H. Jackson, Sr., until his death earlier this year. After serving in the navy during WWII, Jackson studied carpentry at Tuskegee Institute and returned to Gulfport to work with his uncle Tom White, who built several houses in the area, including this one.
More than 260 Properties Saved Across Gulf Coast
Eight years after Hurricane Katrina decimated the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History has disbursed the last of a $26 million federal appropriation to rehabilitate historic buildings and sites and is wrapping up the Hurricane Relief Grant Program for Historic Preservation.
“In the aftermath of the storm, many people desperately needed and wanted to save their historic buildings, and this grant program provided a way for them to do that,” said Kenneth H. P’Pool, who oversaw the program. “Even those who didn’t participate in the program told us that they were encouraged by the sight of historic buildings in their neighborhoods being restored instead of demolished.”
From small cottages to great mansions to prominent public buildings, the grant program aided the restoration of more than 260 historic properties over the seven years it was in place. Homeowners in the Turkey Creek Community of Gulfport
received aid to rehabilitate shotgun cottages, vernacular Victorian houses, and Craftsman bungalows. Founded by newly emancipated African Americans in 1866, the community was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
The grant-funded projects at Beauvoir included restoration work on both the main house and the property’s historic landscape. The centuries-old live oak trees that survived the storm were nurtured to prevent further losses to disease, and, following extensive research, Varina Howell Davis’s two-acre garden was restored, as was a portion of Jefferson Davis’s citrus grove. The Beauvoir estate is a National Historic Landmark.
The Randolph School in Pass Christian and the Art Deco Old Pascagoula High School in Pascagoula are two of the many prominent public buildings that received funding for rehabilitation through the program.
The grant program’s work was assisted by the contributions of many partners, including the City of Biloxi, who provided the historic Glenn Swetman House for use by MDAH as its headquarters on the Gulf Coast. Although the branch office will close its doors at the end of November, the staff is proud of
the role they played in saving an important part of Mississippi’s heritage that otherwise would likely have been lost.
“We helped communities preserve their unique Gulf Coast culture,” said P’Pool.
GROUNDBREAKING, continued from p. 1
the struggle for civil rights and equality that changed the course of the state and the nation.
The themes of both museums will resonate nationally in coming months as the country commemorates anniversaries of key events in the Civil Rights Movement and the Civil War.
A shovel line of more than fifty people including state officials, civil rights activists, Choctaw school children in traditional attire, and others broke ground at the site of the museum complex. The groundbreaking included a daylong festival celebrating Mississippi culture, music, and food. School
children from throughout Mississippi participated in activities and games.
Both museums will feature state-of-the-art audio and visual experiences. Visitors entering ajail cell theater in the Civil Rights Museum will hear stories of activists jailed during the movement. In another gallery they will experience the consequences of “crossing the line” in Jim Crow Mississippi.
Visitors to the Museum of Mississippi History will explore the natural disasters that devastated the state, from the 1927 Flood to Hurricane Katrina. Music lovers can revel in the sounds of B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Elvis Presley, Jimmy Buffett, and
Leontyne Price.
Artifacts to be exhibited in the museums include an ornate garnet necklace donated by descendants of a Union soldier who stole the jewels from a Jackson home during the Civil War; a miniature chess set molded from bread given to Freedom- Riders at Parchman prison; a rare 1818 20-star U.S. flag; and an original Bowie knife.
MDAH curators are appealing to the public for additional artifacts and documents for the museums, particularly from the civil rights era.
Keep up with developments at www.2missippimuseums.com.