It took a personal visit in August from some members of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Board of Trustees to see the Ceres Plantation House, for better or for worse, wasn’t worth preserving.

Trustees Hilda Povall, preservationist from Bolivar County, and Reuben V. Anderson, an attorney and former state Supreme Court justice, were on the fence after a bare quorum of the nine-member panel stayed a vote in July to see if the old farmhouse should be preserved. They got their first look at the house in August, walking up the porch that had been ripped out, viewing the broken windows and the tattered exterior. When the group convened again Oct. 8, the vote to hold back the landmark designation was the correct one.

They said it didn’t meet criteria, which in sum look for a property’s documented history to be somehow reflective of Mississippi or Warren County history. Using some preservationists’ interpretation, every old farmhouse in the state should be landmarked — a clearly preposterous proposition.

If only such quick vision on the part of two people could be duplicated locally. Warren County hasn’t set forth a clear, pure vision for the house just beyond the trees circling the Flowers exit from the interstate and its 41 surrounding acres since it purchased the industrial park property 25 years ago. It was used during the mid-1990s to 2007 as a plant nursery, which was a viable commercial enterprise save for the county’s lack of basic maintenance. A little good-faith cooperation might have kept the venture in business. Since then, it was rented out to tenants who did nothing to improve the property, ensuring it would fall into the gray area of doubt yet again.

State preservationists have spoken, leaving the choice clear for Warren County supervisors and the Warren County Port Commission. They should aggressively seek those with financial backing to move the house or simply bulldoze it for a day when the economy improves and, with it, the chances a large-scale manufacturer will want to create some jobs out there.