Worsham (Clifford G.) Photograph Album PI/1997.0003

The album holds 112 photographs of 1939-1940 construction projects at Tishomingo State Park collected by Clifford Green Worsham, senior engineering foreman. The photographs document Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers building a swimming pool, a dam, and a swinging bridge and also relaxing at the lodge. The album includes images of young people exploring the park that were later used in publicity folders.

Named after a Chickasaw Indian Chief, Tishomingo State Park is just off the Natchez Trace Parkway in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Tishomingo County, Mississippi. The CCC, also known as Roosevelt's Tree Army, constructed the lodge and other buildings in the National Park Service Rustic Style from 1935 through the park's opening in 1938, then proceeded with the projects documented in Worsham's album in 1939-40. Many of the original structures survive to the present day.


Collection Description General & Tech Data Catalog Record

Biography

Clifford Green Worsham was born March 7, 1917, in Corinth to Ben Frank and Helen Boone Worsham. He graduated from Corinth High School and received his BSCE from the University of Mississippi in 1939 with special distinction. He worked as an engineer for Mississippi State Parks and DuPont. He enlisted in the United States Navy and served in World War II, earning four Medals of Distinction. In 1946 he returned to Corinth, joined his two brothers in forming Worsham Brothers Construction Company, and married "the girl next door," Mildred Mercier. They had two daughters, Becky and Cathy. He died June 25, 2009, at his home in Corinth.

Worsham was actively involved in his alma mater and his community. He served as the University of Mississippi Alumni president in 1974-1975, was a member of the Ole Miss Athletic Committee, received the 1983 Engineer of Distinction Award at the University of Mississippi School of Engineering, and was honored in the University of Mississippi Hall of Fame in 1986. He funded the Clifford G. Worsham Scholarship in Civil Engineering for college juniors or seniors at the University of Mississippi. In 1989 he received the Corinth Junior Auxiliary Outstanding Citizen of the Year Award. He also served as a Commissioner on the Public Utility Commission of the City of Corinth from its origin in 1954 until May 2000. The Commission, at its regular meeting on May 14, 2007, recognized Clifford G. Worsham for his outstanding service to Corinth and named the City of Corinth surface water treatment plant in honor of him as a lasting tribute for his many years of service.

Collection Description

The Worsham (Clifford G.) Photograph Album collection consists of twenty-two scanned images of twenty-three pages containing 102 3"x5" black-and-white photographs and ten 5"x7" black-and-white photographs (the blank verso of the title page was not scanned).

Image Description

Captions appearing in quotation marks were written in the album by Clifford G. Worsham; other descriptive information was provided by Clifford G. Worsham in an August 19, 1997, typed document that he donated with the album. Images may be accessed through keyword search on the Web site and by subject headings through the MDAH online catalog.

Provenance

Clifford G. Worsham donated the album of 112 photographs of construction at Tishomingo State Park, 1939-1940, with a typed list of photograph descriptions to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History on August 19, 1997. The MDAH Archives and Records Services Division's Image and Sound section scanned the album pages in 2010, creating preservation-quality TIFF images. These were then converted to Web-friendly Zoomify JPEG images by the Electronic Archives section and made available online within the MDAH Electronic Archives Graphic User Interface.