STARKVILLE – Strong winds Sunday night led to the collapse of the building that was Dr. Douglas L. Conner’s first office in Starkville.

Ashley Smith was shocked Monday when the two-story building located at 119 Dr. Douglas L. Conner Drive had collapsed, damaging the funeral home next door. Her company, SSG Homes, bought the historic building three months ago with plans to preserve the external structure while gutting the interior and renovating it into an apartment building with a downstairs storefront.

Smith also did not expect the cleanup to cause a gas leak that would evacuate four blocks downtown.

“I was about ready to turn off my phone that day,” Smith told The Dispatch on Wednesday. “… (I feel) better today. It’s been a couple days. Monday would not have been a good day to ask.”

While the building sat vacant for years, it once was at the center of Starkville’s civil rights movement.

Built in 1950, it housed Conner’s original office on the second floor of the building while the downstairs housed Fred Grady’s Barber Shop, according to research by Cyndi Parker, assistant professor in the Department of Interior Design at Mississippi State University.

The barber shop was among one of the first African American businesses in the city, and Conner was the city’s first Black physician.

Conner founded the Oktibbeha County chapter of the NAACP and held meetings in his office. Conner is also widely recognized as being a driving force behind integrating Starkville schools, according to Mississippi Encyclopedia.

City Planner Daniel Havelin said the building sat in the historic African American business district. In October 2025, the building was identified as one of Mississippi’s 10 most endangered historical places by the Mississippi Heritage Trust.

After sitting vacant for many years, strong winds Sunday knocked down the south wall of the building at about midnight, said Stein McMullen, city building official.

The collapsed wall fell on the adjacent West Memorial Funeral Home, damaging the car canopy and two vehicles.

“I got a call from the sheriff’s department (Monday morning),” said Vernon West, West Memorial Funeral Home mortician and funeral director. “… When we arrived here, we just saw what had happened, and it takes a moment to absorb that. But, all in all, doing what we do, when you arrive at any scene and there is no loss of life, it’s good. I was just thankful that it happened over the night.”

Smith rushed to demolish what was left standing of the building. But while demolition was in progress Tuesday, a gas line, which was thought to be inactive, ruptured and began to leak, McMullen said.

Four total blocks, which included West Memorial Funeral Home and the Oktibbeha County Courthouse, were evacuated at about 10:30 a.m., Oktibbeha County Tax Assessor JoHelen Walker told The Dispatch.

The Oktibbeha County Jail is located across the street from the site of the building but was not evacuated as the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Office decided a shelter-in-place would be safer, Capt. Brett Watson told The Dispatch.

Both Walker and West decided to keep their offices closed throughout the day Tuesday. But West said he came back to his funeral home around 5 p.m., and everything was clear.

“Any time you close a business there is an impact,” West said. “… But I feel it was minimal.”

Smith and West both said they have been working together to come up with a solution for the damages to the funeral home.

“There’s no reason to be angry about it. It’s just an accident,” West said. “… The owners of the property next door are doing what they can do to get things back to normal.”

Demolition on the building was completed Wednesday morning, leaving only an empty lot in its place.

Smith is uncertain how the project will proceed, though she still wants to build something in that lot. She expects a new build will cost more than the planned renovation, however.