Tag: Camp

This obituary is part of a series on people who died in the coronavirus pandemic. Learn more about the others here.

When Dan Camp was in senior school at North Carolina State University in Raleigh in the mid-1960s, a historic building caught his eye. It was a chalet where, at least according to local tradition, President Andrew Johnson was born. What struck Mr. Camp was that a relatively compact space could be perfectly adequate accommodation.

“I suspected then that most Americans lived in this type of environment,” he told Mississippi Magazine in 2001, “so I came home with the idea that these types of housing would be a great way. to build things and offer them to students. ”

Back home in Mississippi, he moved to Starkville, about 200 miles northeast of Jackson, and became intrigued by the possibilities of a ramshackle area between the Mississippi State University campus, where he taught. in the industrial education department, and downtown. section that became known as the Cotton District, due to the mill that once thrived there. The factory had closed in 1964, and workers’ housing nearby had deteriorated.

In 1969, Mr. Camp began buying property in this area and creating an eclectic oasis of tight-knit housing and businesses that has garnered the admiration of planners ever since. The Cotton District is today one of the most popular addresses in Starkville, especially for students, a neighborhood with varied architecture and friendly to pedestrians, consisting of cottages, duplexes, apartments, shops on one level, courtyards and fountains.

Mr. Camp, who served as mayor of Starkville from 2005 to 2009, died Oct. 25 in Meridian, Mississippi. He was 79 years old. Her son Robert said the cause was complications from Covid-19.

Robert Daniel Camp was born April 13, 1941 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi. Her father, Dewey, was a group principal and her mother, Opal Quay (Webb) Camp, was an educator who the family said was Elvis Presley’s home teacher in sixth grade.

Mr. Camp graduated from Tupelo High School in 1959, received a Bachelor of Education from the State of Mississippi in 1963, and received a Masters of Education from the State of North Carolina in 1967 before returning to Starkville. He began the reinvention of the Cotton District with eight small townhouses.

“Most people in the community thought I was crazy to go to such a run down slum and do something like that,” he told Mississippi Public Broadcasting in 2013.

Over the years he has added small cabins – ranging in size from 300 to 500 square feet, aimed at students – and an assortment of other residential units, as well as shops, restaurants, bars and public spaces, all in narrow streets that encouraged foot traffic and a community atmosphere. . The neighborhood was built on the principles of the 1980s movement known as Nouvel Urbanisme, but came into being long before the term was coined.

“Mayor Camp talked about walking and mixed-use development before it got cool,” Parker Wiseman, his mayoral successor, said on Twitter. “He didn’t just talk about it. He built it.

“He hired me to paint a mural on his desk about 10 minutes after meeting me in early 2014,” Roy said. “This was despite the fact that I had no paid experience, no knowledge of operating a scissor lift and no proper sketches. He liked that the old people in town hated my job.

After that, Mr. Roy said, Mr. Camp continued to give him commissions just to support his art.

“At any time, he could also be the patron of a writer, sculptor, savage impressionist, barefoot juggler, lost intellectual, or a hippie clothing store in ethical origin ”, he declared. “He wanted a creative carousel in the neighborhood by design.”

In addition to his son Robert, Mr. Camp is survived by his wife, Gemma, whom he married in 1981; another son, Frederick, known as Bonn; and two granddaughters.