[12/12/2001]Four area buildings, including the Old Court House Museum, will undergo restoration projects with grants from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Warren County supervisors won $235,000 for roof repair at the 1860 building in which the Vicksburg and Warren County Historical Society has operated a museum for more than 50 years.

The Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation won $200,000 for interior renovations at the 1830 Cobb House, part of the complex of buildings that formed St. Francis Xavier Academy.

Sharkey County officials won $300,000 for window and roof repair at the courthouse in Rolling Fork.

Port Gibson officials won $150,000 for structural stabilization of the Meyer-Marx building downtown.

The money comes from $6 million the Legislature authorized for the Community Heritage Preservation Grant Program this year.

There were 68 applicants and 27 buildings received a share of the funds announced Monday. It would have taken $24 million to fund all requests.

“This program will enable the preservation of some of the most significant historic buildings in the state,” said Elbert R. Hilliard, state Archives and History director.

Gordon Cotton, curator and director of the Old Court House Museum, said the roof there has needed repair for years. “It’s in pretty bad shape,” Cotton said.

The building has been a prominent architectural presence in Vicksburg since the Civil War, when Confederates housed Union prisoners of war in the 1860 courthouse’s top floors to keep gunboats from blasting it. County operations moved across Cherry Street in the 1940s.

The Cobb House is the oldest building in the complex administered by the private Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation, said programs coordinator Stacie Botsay.

It had stood for 30 years before Sisters of Mercy arrived from Baltimore to found St. Francis Xavier Academy and Convent. The nuns sold the complex to the City of Vicksburg in 1991 and the city contracted out operations to SCHF.

At different times in the Civil War, both Confederate and Union troops used the house for barracks. Opposite the house on Crawford is Pemberton Headquarters, used by Vicksburg’s defending general and destined to become part of the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Port Gibson Mayor Amelda Arnold said the Meyer-Marx building, once a drug store, has been vacant for years and is in severe disrepair.

“It’s been sitting there for a very long time. . . it’s just a shell,” Arnold said. The money will begin the process of turning the building into an art house. Eventually, the bottom floor of the building will be used to sell art, and the top floor which has a skylight could be used to exhibit art, Arnold said.

The Sharkey County Courthouse will use the $300,000 one of the larger sums granted to repair several points on the building’s exterior, including the roof and some windows, the grant application says.