Field Experiment Station (former) – Meridian MS

Description

The station was begun in the 1931 as a fruit and vegetable research station. From 1933-1935, the site was expanded and new buildings constructed. The buildings were built by Public Works Administration from 1933 to 1935 with an allotment of $96,350. Funds were provided by Public Works under the National Industrial Recovery Act. The purpose of the allotment was fruit and vegetable disease research and auxiliary buildings devoted to sugar cane research. The Administration Office and Laboratory were built in 1933. After a new two-story brick and stucco administration building and laboratory was constructed 1935, the first administration office was used only as a laboratory. It was a wooden structure now covered with corrugated metal panels. The greenhouse, ca. 1934, is brick and glass on a concrete slab, with the back two-thirds of the building brick with metal framing and glass in the Bungalow/Craftsman style. Also included in the buildings were a caretakers home, project supervisor home, pump house, garage, storage building, and muscadine grape arbor trellis. The pump house and well were built in the late 1930s to replace a metal pump house and water tower constructed in 1933. The buildings are still extant, but use of the site is unknown. The station was closed in 1983.