‘Old Main’ documentary delivers MSU landmark’s fateful day in January 1959
The national award-winning University Television Center at Mississippi State premiered a short documentary on Sunday [Jan. 23] that takes viewers back more than 60 years for a look at an iconic campus landmark.
“Old Main,” a tribute to MSU’s best-known building that burned in January of 1959, is an 11-minute film developed by the MSU Films initiative, a UTC project to tell stories of the institution through those that witnessed them.
The short film debuted on MSU’s Facebook page, @msstate, and was simulcast on MSTV, the university’s high-definition television channel. Viewers can now find the production at films.msstate.edu.
The production features an interview with a university alumnus who experienced the colossal dormitory’s fiery demise, with footage from that night and the aftermath. MSU Films also recreated scenes, taping a building being overcome by smoke and using actors as students who were a part of the evacuation.
“Reportedly the largest in America at the time, Old Main dormitory was home to thousands of students through the decades. The massive fire changed everything on January 23, 1959, and this documentary short provides a firsthand account of that night, told through the words of one student who was there,” said David Garraway, UTC director.
Last year, MSU Films won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for “The Last Supermarket,” an examination of a Mississippi Delta community which becomes a food dessert when its only grocery closes.
According to Garraway, additional projects are on the way from MSU Films. These include a piece titled “XIII” about alumni who played a pivotal role in 1970 in safely bringing the Apollo 13 spacecraft back to Earth. “The Hungriest State,” a four-part miniseries of which “The Last Supermarket” is a part, premieres three more episodes in the coming months.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.
Harriet Laird | Public Affairs
