July 11, 2003
Federal measure includes $300,000 for Lamar house
Senate to consider appropriations in coming days
by Lucy Schultze
The Oxford EAGLE
The planned restoration of the L.Q.C. Lamar house on North
14th Street may get a $300,000 boost thanks to its inclusion in a
U.S. Senate bill to fund the Department of the Interior for the
coming year.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to approve
the bill. It will go to the full Senate for consideration in the
coming days.
The dream of restoring the Lamar house and opening it to the
public was one of many ideas city and county leaders brought to
Washington when they visited Mississippi's congressional delegation
in January.
Since then, Sen. Thad Cochran's office has been in contact
with the office of Oxford Mayor Richard Howorth to learn more about
the proposed renovation, which is being led by the Oxford-Lafayette
County Heritage Foundation.
A Cochran aide said this morning that the senator has taken a
special interest in the project; L.Q.C. Lamar is one of four
influential Mississippi senators whose portraits hang on the wall in
Cochran's office, denoting his admiration.
Lamar served as U.S. senator and secretary of the interior
before becoming the only Mississippian ever to serve on the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1888. He lived in the one-story colonial-style
cottage in Oxford between 1868 and 1888.
A spokesman for Sen. Trent Lott also said the Lamar house
restoration is "one of the projects (Lott) has been tracking for a
while."
The staffs of both senators submitted funding requests for
the Lamar house among their many appropriations requests for
Mississippi projects, aides said. Cochran serves as the
second-ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee and also is
a member of the Interior Subcommittee.
Once the bill passes the full Senate, it must be resolved
with the House of Representatives' version in conference committee.
Cochran's aide said she was not aware of any similar earmark
for the Lamar house in the House version of the bill, but said the
senator's staff will "do all we can to maintain the earmarks we have."
Lott's spokesman said the bill is "certainly not through the
legislative process," but that the senator expects Mississippi's
allocations to remain.
Funds for other Mississippi projects in the Senate
appropriations bill include:
- $6.1 million for the acquisition of privately owned
portions of Cat Island and Horn Island to be added to the Gulf Island
National Seashore.
- $1 million for the Natchez Trace Parkway rehabilitation.
- $1 million for the research program at Mississippi State
University's GeoResources Institute.
- $300,000 for a feasibility study of a recreational lake in
the Bienville National Forest in Smith County.
The federal funding for the Lamar house is in addition to the
$425,000 in state funds approved for the project in April by the
Mississippi Legislature. That allocation was tacked on as a line item
to a related bill by State Sen. Gray Tollison.
The state money brought the project close to the estimated
$500,000 it will take to purchase the house, stabilize it and draft
engineering plans. The next phases will include a restoration of the
home and its operation and maintenance for the benefit of the public.
Bill Russell, who chairs the OLCHF's 20-member Lamar house
committee with Goodloe Lewis, said this morning that it is still
unclear how much money it will take to restore the home.
As details from furniture to landscaping are worked out,
preservationists are encouraged that so much progress has been made
since they secured an option to purchase the house just six months
ago.
"We're at the start of a journey that's going to take
awhile," Russell said. "But it's off to a good start."