Lowndes County officials may soon receive the go-ahead from Mississippi Department of Archives and History to move the Confederate monument on the courthouse lawn to Friendship Cemetery, according to county engineer Bob Calvert and MDAH officials.
MDAH Board of Trustees, which consists of nine members from across the state, will discuss and vote on the matter during its Oct. 30 meeting, said MDAH spokesperson Michael Morris.
The update is the latest development since supervisors voted unanimously in July to relocate the monument to city-owned Friendship Cemetery, where both Union and Confederate soldiers are buried. Between two potential sites the city offered to donate to the county, supervisors decided in August to relocate the monument to a site close to the Confederate section within the cemetery.
Calvert, on behalf of the county, later submitted a relocation plan to MDAH for its approval. The plan proposed to break down the monument into parts, move them to the cemetery site and pour a new foundation on-site, Calvert told The Dispatch on Wednesday.
On Sept. 30, MDAH’s representatives, including its chief archeologist and preservation specialist met with several supervisors and Calvert at the proposed relocation site for the monument. Morris told The Dispatch the trip was for department representatives to “evaluate whether or not cultural resources would be affected by the project’s scope of work.”
During its Oct. 30 meeting, Morris said, the MDAH board will receive a presentation from department staff on the Lowndes County case and determine if the plan is feasible and follows the U.S. Secretary of Interior’s standards for the treatment of historic properties. He said the board judges relocation plans on a “case-by-case basis.”
“There is no project that is the same as another, because each situation is different,” Morris said. “It depends on whether, for example, a property … is on the National Register of Historic Places or has some kind of landmark status.”
Morris told The Dispatch the monument enjoys a state landmark status, because it sits on the lawn of the courthouse, which was designated a state landmark in 1990. That status means the state will give the historic landmark the highest level of protection, and when considering the relocation plan, MDAH staff will apply a “heightened scrutiny,” he said.
Erected in 1912, the monument honors soldiers who fought for the South during the Civil War and deemed war a “noble cause.” A soldier holding a flag in his left arm stands on top of the monument.
Calvert told The Dispatch on Tuesday he received positive feedback from the representatives inspecting on site.
“I understand they are good with everything,” he said. “… They left and indicated that everything was alright.”
If MDAH approves the plan, Calvert said the next step will be for the county to advertise and award construction bids, which will take roughly two months. Without bids, Calvert said he is not sure of the estimated cost. He previously told supervisors that pouring the foundation alone would cost up to $30,000.
The relocation process, which he said will involve breaking down the monument, pouring the new foundation, moving the structure and reassembling it, will take three to four months to complete.
“It’s more than just move it. You got to clean it. You got to build a new foundation,” Calvert said. “It’ll just take time.”
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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