Eudora Welty House Opens to Enthusiastic Crowds
 Light showers didn't discourage visitors as more than 1,600 people toured the Eudora Welty House over the Grand Opening weekend. Enthusiastic crowds walked through the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's house and garden and reconstructed clubhouse. A film on Welty's life was shown in a tent set up across the street from the Welty House on the Belhaven College campus. Visitors awaiting entrance to the house heard Welty biographer Suzanne Marrs tell stories and answer questions about Welty.
The Eudora Welty House, located at 1119 Pinehurst Street in Jackson's historic Belhaven neighborhood, will be open for tours by reservation Wednesdays through Fridays at 9 and 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m. Welty lived in the house for seventy-six years, writing all of her prize-winning works there. In 2004 the Eudora Welty House was named a National Historic Landmark, the nation's most prestigious designation for historic sites.
Visitors see Welty's house as she lived in it, with the author's own furniture, art, and large collection of books, which she kept spread throughout the house. Welty's writing desk and typewriter remain in her upstairs bedroom next to windows overlooking the front yard and Belhaven College across the street.
"We wanted to represent Eudora as she was," said Mary Alice White, director of the Eudora Welty House and Welty's niece. "These things were all well-loved by Eudora, and we tried to make sure that the house would still feel like her home."
 Eudora Welty published numerous short stories and novels, photography collections, a memoir, and more. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, she received the National Book Award, the National Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, and the French Legion of Honor.
Welty left her house and collection of thousands of books to the state, and the Welty family donated the furniture and art. The Department of Archives and History has overseen the transition from private residence to historic site and is now working to open a visitors center to provide space for special exhibits on Welty as well as on-site restrooms and parking.
The two-story Tudor Revival house was built in 1925 by Welty's parents, Christian and Chestina Welty. The house has been restored to its appearance of the mid 1980s, the last period when Welty was actively traveling and writing.
In addition to the house, visitors will see the garden, laid out by Welty's mother, Chestina, when the house was being built. Both mother and daughter tended the garden until Chestina became too ill to work in it. The garden has been restored to its appearance of the 1940s, the last years Chestina and Eudora regularly worked in it together. The garden was created in the southern regional style almost exclusively with plants available locally-typical for that time-and is made up of distinct areas, including a camellia garden with more than forty camellia shrubs, an upper garden, a lower garden, and woodland garden. There are two arbors, and a fifty-foot-wide trellis separates the upper and lower gardens. The garden features many heirloom varieties of irises, roses, lilies, and other flowering plants.
Admission to the Eudora Welty House is $5 for adults, $3 for students, and free for children under six. Group discounts are available on all tours. Welty's birthday was April 13, and when the 13th of each month falls on a day the Eudora Welty House is open, admission will be free. For more information or to schedule a tour, call 601-353-7762 or email weltytours@mdah.state.ms.us.
Eudora Welty House Designated a National Historic Landmark
The Eudora Welty House has been named a National Historic Landmark, the nation's most prestigious recognition for historic properties. United States Senator Thad Cochran made the announcement on the grounds of the Eudora Welty House on October 19. The National Park Service nominates sites to be National Historic Landmarks and the Secretary of the Interior makes the final designation.
 "Eudora Welty was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century," said Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton. "She wrote all of her prize-winning works in this house. National Historic Landmarks preserve America's diverse cultural and architectural heritage. These unique places are windows to our history that shed light on our past and inspire our future generations."
The Welty House becomes the sixth National Historic Landmark property administered by the Department of Archives and History. The others are the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians, Adams County; the Hester site, Monroe County; the Jaketown site, Belzoni, Humphreys County; the Old Capitol, Jackson, Hinds County; and Winterville Mounds, Greenville, Washington County.
The two-story Tudor Revival-style residence was completed in 1925 at 1119 Pinehurst Street in Jackson, across the street from Belhaven College. In 1986 Welty made the decision that the state should have her house at her death. The Eudora Welty House is scheduled to open to the public in April of 2006 as a literary house museum interpreting Welty's life and work. Internet users can take a virtual tour of the house on the Web site of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The Welty garden is open for tours by reservation on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March through October.
Eudora Welty House Garden Opens to Public
More than thirteen hundred people toured the garden of the Eudora Welty House during A Garden Reborn, the three-day opening celebration April 3-5. Visitors from twenty-six states, the District of Columbia, and Canada traveled to Jackson for the event, and the 2004 Oxford Conference for the Book scheduled a special trip to the garden. Local art teachers brought their classes to sketch and photograph the plants, and Eudora Welty fans and gardening enthusiasts alike came to see the site.
 During the tours master gardeners and other volunteers answered questions about Welty, her house, and her garden, and visitors received garden guides, commemorative bookmarks, and packs of heirloom morning glory seeds. At a program at the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History garden restoration consultant Susan Haltom talked about the restoration project, Welty scholar Suzanne Marrs spoke about Welty's treatment of gardening in her writing, and preservation architect Robert Parker Adams discussed the process of preparing the Eudora Welty House to open as a museum.
The garden stretches over a lot of about three-quarters of an acre at 1119 Pinehurst Street, where Welty lived and wrote for seventy-five years. The garden will be open for free tours by appointment Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through October. To reserve a time, call the Eudora Welty House at 601-353-7762 or email weltytours@mdah.state.ms.us
Jackson artist Gail Pittman has created a special edition plate commemorating the garden opening with Welty's words on the back, "My ears would just open like morning glories." Blue morning glory blooms are depicted on the front, the blue inspired by the color of the walls of the bedroom where Welty wrote. The initial offering is of three hundred plates, $25 each with tax included. This is the first in a planned series of Gail Pittman dishes to benefit the Eudora Welty House. The plates may be purchased at the Old Capitol Shop. For more information call (601) 576-6921.
A Garden Reborn was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Eudora Welty House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Department of Archives and History is now working, with the financial support of the Eudora Welty Foundation, to establish the property as a literary house museum to interpret Welty's life and work to visitors.
Welty Prints, Photographs Available for Purchase
A new print depicting writer Eudora Welty is available for purchase. The woodcut, the first in a series of five, is by longtime Welty friend and collaborator Barry Moser, a National Book Award-winning illustrator. Moser is donating the prints to the Department of Archives and History to raise money to support the Eudora Welty House, which will open in summer 2005.
 The print series will show Welty at various ages. The first print, Eudora Welty, c. 1990, features a 4" by 7" image on a 9.5" by 12.5" sheet of acid-free paper. Each original relief engraving in this limited edition of 100 has been signed and numbered by the artist. Twenty-four additional prints have been reserved for inclusion in portfolios to be offered some time after the final print has been issued.
Welty and Moser met and became friends in the early 1980s, and Moser illustrated an edition of Welty's Robber Bridegroom, published in 1987. In addition, Moser has illustrated or designed almost 200 volumes, including Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, which won the National Book Award for Design and Illustration in 1983. Moser's Pennyroyal Caxton Bible has been exhibited at the National Gallery of Art and galleries around the world.
In addition to the Welty Print Series, the Old Capitol Shop still has a few remaining copies of Home Places: 5 Photographs by Eudora Welty, a series of limited-edition sets of black-and-white photographs by Eudora Welty. The photographs are printed on 11" by 14" sheets of silver paper, toned, and unmounted. Prints are available exclusively from the Old Capitol Shop. They sell individually for $100 or in sets of five for $500 plus tax and shipping, if applicable.
Welty prints by Moser may be purchased at the Old Capitol Museum's shop or by mail. To order a print, send a check made payable to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for $250 plus $10 shipping and handling (plus $17.50 sales tax for Mississippi residents) to Eudora Welty Print, P.O. Box 571, Jackson, MS 39205-0571, or call the Old Capitol Shop, 601-576-6921.
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