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A. J. OAKES HOUSE

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c. 1850; 1890s, c. 1915 additions, A. J. Oakes. 308 S. Monroe St.

This impressive two-story Queen Anne house encapsulates the story of two generations of African Americans before and after the Civil War. Carpenter John Oakes and his wife, Mary, both from South Carolina, settled in Yazoo City in 1853 as free persons of color, and in 1866 they acquired this property with its two-room galleried residence (now the rear wing). Their son, Augustus Josephus Oakes, graduated from the State Normal School for Negroes in Holly Springs and returned in 1877 as principal of the Yazoo City Colored Graded School. He established A. J. Oakes Lumber Yard in the newly subdivided Lintonia Addition (see YB36) and was the contractor for the 1908 Yazoo City Colored Graded School.

Oakes undertook at least two significant building programs on his parents’ house. In the 1890s, he erected a four-room one-story house, making the older building the rear ell. Around 1915, Oakes expanded the house more dramatically in a somewhat outdated Queen Anne style, adding a second story, the round corner tower, and an ornate Ionic columned double-gallery that wraps to three sides. The gallery’s Tuscan columns are later alterations.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Jennifer V.O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio with Mary Warren Miller
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Data

What's Nearby

ST. STEPHEN UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
YAZOO COUNTY COURTHOUSE
WILSON-GILRUTH HOUSE
FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
RICKS MEMORIAL LIBRARY

Citation

Jennifer V.O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio with Mary Warren Miller, "A. J. OAKES HOUSE", [Yazoo City, Mississippi], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MS-02-YB33.

Print Source

Buildings of Mississippi, Jennifer V. O. Baughn and Michael W. Fazio. With Mary Warren Miller. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021, 88-89.

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