Lost Churches of Mississippi

Preface and Acknowledgments

- vii Preface and Acknowledgments This book is a collection of photographs, postcards, and other images of architecturally interesting old churches and synagogues of Mississippi that no longer stand. One hundred and ten lost churches and synagogues are featured here. This is only a small portion of buildings that could have been included. Those selected were churches or synagogues for which good, reproducible images were available—mostly from the photographic collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH)—and for which some historical information could be readily obtained, mostly from the files of the Historic Preservation Division, MDAH. Numerous other buildings equally worthy of attention were left out only because photographs or other images suitable for making high-resolution digital scans were not available or because not enough historical information could be assembled in time to use it in the book. I regret that I was unable to spend much time examining materials in the reference collections of local libraries, museums, and historical societies around the state. From the libraries and archival collections that I did have the opportunity to consult during the preparation of this book, I was able to obtain sufficient information to document this limited number of particularly interesting lost buildings—but these few buildings are only a small sampling of the many churches and synagogues of Mississippi that no longer stand. The Historic Preservation Division of MDAH maintains an extensive and ever-growing set of files about the historic buildings of the state, including nonextant buildings. If readers of this book have additional information about lost churches in their communities, I urge them to bring that information to the attention of the architectural historians on the staff of the Historic Preservation Division. viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is intended primarily as a pictorial work. The emphasis is on the illustrations. I have endeavored to provide architectural information about each building to enable the reader to appreciate the buildings within their historical and architectural contexts, but I have not intended to provide a narrative history of the buildings or their congregations. This book is a celebration of their architecture , expressed largely through old photographs. Documenting the architecture of buildings that no longer survive is much more challenging than documenting existing buildings. One cannot visit a lost building to photograph it, examine it, and describe its appearance. Instead, the researcher must depend upon old drawings and photographs and other sources of pictorial information, such as Sanborn fire insurance maps and bird’s-eye town maps. Old postcards are particularly helpful sources. At the back of this book are three compilations of reference sources that are intended to assist readers who are interested in doing further reading and research on the lost churches of Mississippi. The first is a collection of endnotes listing sources used for the text and offering further explanations and comments. The second reference compilation is an annotated bibliography that includes an introductory commentary on sources of information about the history of religious architecture in Mississippi. The third is a detailed list of the sources of the illustrations used in the book. The inspiration for compiling this book came from several sources. It was partly inspired by my experience of working for twenty years as the chief architectural historian for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, a position I held from August of 1985 until my retirement at the end of January 2006. During that time, in the course of reorganizing and adding extensive documentation to a system of files about thousands of buildings and historic sites throughout the state, I realized that those files contained information about hundreds of architecturally notable buildings that no longer stand. A more immediate inspiration was the publication of Mary Carol Miller’s Lost Mansions of Mississippi and Lost Landmarks of Mississippi, which brought many of the state’s lost buildings to the attention of the reading public. The strongest inspiration for this book, however, was the experience of working with photographer Sherry Pace to produce the book Historic Churches of Mississippi, which was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2007. As I did the research and wrote the text for that book, I came to realize that the existing churches and synagogues of Mississippi embody only part of the history of the state’s religious architecture . In order to truly appreciate the architectural context of the historic religious buildings that still stand, one must also have some knowledge about religious buildings that...