National Park Service Begins Rehabilitation of Tupelo and Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Sites

TUPELO — The National Park Service (NPS) is partnering with the Historic Preservation Training Center (HPTC) to rehabilitate the Tupelo and Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield sites located in Lee County, Mississippi. Both sites were established by Congress in 1929 and administered by the War Department until transferred to the Department of Interior in 1933. Each one-acre site consists of a large central monument flanked by cannons and carriages along with small commemorative markers. The sites are remnants of the larger Civil War battlefields they commemorate and are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

HPTC will comprehensively clean the monuments and markers using gentle methods and products designed specifically to preserve the stone and bronze elements. The monuments’ joints will be repointed using mortar matched to the existing historic material. “The original mortar holding the monuments together is beginning to fail,” stated Resource Management Chief Chris Smith, “but in order to maintain their historic integrity, we asked the NPS’s National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to analyze samples so we could match the new mortar with the exact material and consistency of the original.” Work will begin at Brices Cross Roads, on July 10^th, followed by rehabilitation of the Tupelo National Battlefield.