Abandoned Utica High School, Utica, Mississippi

Utica is a small town in Hinds County about half way between Vicksburg and Crystal Springs. Like many towns throughout Mississippi, especially in the Delta, that I have described in these pages, Utica must have been active and prosperous decades ago. Today, it is a sad place; most of the stores are boarded up, there is little commercial activity. A few years ago, a block of the former commercial shops on Depot Street were dismantled for their bricks. Drive west out of town on West Main Street, turn left on Carpenter Street, and the old high school is on the left. Built in 1948, it is a traditional brick building with large windows and a cheerful look.

The large windows date to the time before air conditioning was installed in schools, and the natural light reduced the need for fluorescents.

Two of my friends attended Utica HS. One of them told me that it originally was for African-American students in grades 9-12. Students in grades 1-8 attended Mixon Elementary Colored School, a few miles north. In 1970, Utica's schools were integrated, and the first mixed black and white class met in Utica HS that year. It was renamed Utica Consolidated High School. With a satellite building to the east (now a grass field), the new consolidated school held about 800 students in six grades, with about 500 in high school.

The building has a fallout shelter in the basement. That dates it to the early cold war era, the time of "duck and cover." I recall air raid practice in elementary school in New York City in 1961. My grandmother lived in Berlin in World War II, and from her descriptions of bombings, I was familiar with the concept of a shelter.

The inner hallways were decorated with that terrible green industrial paint you see in mid-20th century schools and asylums throughout the country.

This building is still in reasonably good condition. As usual, I can't understand why a school system abandons a facility in sound condition. You wonder who really benefits from new school construction -  empire-building by bureaucrats perhaps? Kickbacks from the construction trade?

The transoms are another example of ventilation in a pre-air-conditioning era.

The Gold Waves were the basketball team.  They won many athletic events.  The trophy racks and the fantastic purple wall were in the athletic building just to the south of the main school. The roof of the field house is collapsing now and the gymnasium is a mess.

Photographs are from a Panasonic G1 digital camera with Lumix 14-45 mm lens, tripod-mounted.