Another Rural Gymnasium: Edwards, Mississippi

On January 26, 2016, Suzassippi wrote about Rural Gymnasiums in the Preservation Mississippi blog. Here is another example to add to the list.

This gymnasium is at the corner of Magnolia Street and old US 80 in the town of Edwards. From what I can tell, the building has been closed for years, but it has been secured. All doors were locked.

I was not familiar with the National Youth Administration. The Mississippi department of Archives and History has a web page with photographs of NYA projects. They were lucky to complete this building in 1941 because once the World War II started, much civilian construction was interrupted or cancelled. According  to Preservation Mississippi, the gymnasium was designed by architect James Manly Spain in the Art Moderne style.

Photographs taken with Kodak BW400CN film in a Leica M2 rangefinder camera and 50mm f/2.0 Summicron lens. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i scanner using Silverfast Ai software and resized with ACDSee Pro.

Update May 31, 2016: The interesting blog, Preservation Mississippi wrote a more detailed description of the gymnasium.