Mound Bayou Historic District is a
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...
located in the city of
Mound Bayou in
Bolivar County
Bolivar County ( ), officially the County of Bolivar, is a County (United States), county located on the western border of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 30,985. Its county sea ...
, Mississippi, U.S..
[ With ] The area was founded by, developed and governed by African Americans in its early years, and is primarily residential with a small strip of commercial structures running for two blocks along Edwards Avenue. It is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
on September 11, 2013, for architecture.
History
The Mound Bayou Historic District contains 34
contributing properties
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distr ...
, 17 noncontributing, and 3 already listed on the NRHP.
Almost all of the surviving buildings in this district are
vernacular
Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...
in style.
The roughly eleven block district is flat.
There are few formal records regarding Mound Bayou, including no
Sanborn maps
Sanborn maps are detailed maps of U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and 20th centuries. Originally published by The Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn), the maps were created to allow fire insurance companies to assess their total liability in urbaniz ...
that cover the area.
This town was founded and built by African Americans, and insurance companies did not insure any buildings.
List of notable buildings
* 103 Burns Street (c. 1950)
* 113 East Main Street (c. 1960)
* 213 East Main Street (c. 1955)
* 600 East Main Street (c. 1950)
* Orin’s Variety Store, 107 South Edwards Street (c. 1920)
* Pichard’s, 200 South Edwards Street (c. 1930)
* Club Jabot, 204 South Edwards Street (c. 1950)
* U.S. Post Office, 206 South Edwards Street (c. 1960)
* 301 South Edwards Street (c. 1925)
*
Taborian Hospital, 102 East M.L.K. Jr. Drive (1942); also
NRHP
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
-listed, designed by
McKissack & McKissack
McKissack & McKissack is an American design, program management and construction firm based in New York. It is the oldest Black-owned architecture and construction company in the United States.
The firm was founded in 1905 in Nashville, Tennesse ...
*
Isaiah T. Montgomery House, 302 West Main Street, South (1910); also NRHP-listed
*
Eugene Parker Booze House, 308 West Main Street, North (1910)
*
Mound Bayou Cemetery, south side of Mound Bayou Road (c. 1890)
*
Bank of Mound Bayou, West Main Street (1904); also NRHP-listed
See also
*
References
National Register of Historic Places in Bolivar County, Mississippi
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