The Construction News Photograph Collection PI/2009.0004

The Construction News Photograph Collection consists of 1,849 negatives and 621 black-and-white photographic prints (fifty-three of which were made from negatives not in this collection) produced between the years 1953 and 1960. They were used to illustrate stories about Mississippi in the regional magazine The Construction News, which published bid award news and feature articles on all aspects of road and bridge construction and official social events of the people who built them.

The bulk of the images offer a glimpse at construction of Mississippi highways and landmarks, including the Bay St. Louis Bridge (Highway 90 between Bay St. Louis and Henderson Point, ca. 1953), the Natchez Trace Parkway (1956), the Meridian Naval Auxiliary Air Station (1957), Grenada Dam (Grenada Lake, 1953), and the Texas Eastern Transmission Pipeline (ca. 1955). The rest of the images are from meetings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Association of General Contractors, the Mississippi Association of Supervisors, the Mississippi Road Builders Association, and the Mississippi Society of Professional Engineers, as well as grand openings of construction equipment companies throughout Mississippi.