They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this series I’ve chosen one picture per post which brings out strong memories for me and has a story attached to it. This story is about a beautiful morning along the Nabesna Road in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, my last morning in Alaska.
It all started with a cigarette.
I haven’t been a regular smoker for many years, but sometimes when I had worked a long season guiding tours and the days were turning cooler as summer turned to fall, I’ve been known to pick up a pack. Usually before that pack is finished I’ll remember why I quit, but those first couple remind me why I started to begin with. And so it was that on a sunny afternoon in early fall I found myself smoking a cigarette outside of my hotel a few miles from LAX International Airport.
This was a hotel we used for our staff during turnarounds between tours in L.A, and there were a few other of our vans than mine in the parking lot that day. A fellow tour leader who I didn’t know had seen me get out of my van, so she came over and introduced herself. We made small talk about what trips we were doing and what else we were up to with a few days off in L.A. and she told me she was filling out an application to return to Alaska to work the following summer. In the company I work for, Alaska is like the Promised Land, it’s somewhere everyone seems to want to go spend the summer, but in the old days it was somewhere you only got to go once. One season in the great north land, and that was it. More recently, she told me, we had started running some high-end tours and they needed some experienced leaders to run them so the application process was open to everyone. We chatted some more, and it got me thinking…
What exactly is Galveston? Is it a typically Southern town? An island with a beach vibe? An historic port city like New Orleans? A Texan town? The answer to all of those is “yes”. Galveston is a fascinating place with so much to offer. Even after a few days there I felt like I had only begun to scratch the surface of the Queen City of the Gulf.
The first non-natives to inhabit Galveston came in 1816 with the pirate Louis-Michel Aury. When Aury went on a raid the following year, he returned to find that the island had been occupied by the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte. Lafitte set up a “Pirate Kingdom” there and remained with his people for the next 5 years. The Port of Galveston was established under the Mexican government in 1825, and the town would serve briefly as the capital of the Independent Republic of Texas in 1836. Galveston, along with the rest of Texas, joined the Confederacy during the Civil War and became a target due to its major port…
Meridian, Mississippi was chartered in 1860 at the junction of the Mobile & Ohio and Southern Railways. When the Civil War broke out the following year, Meridian was just a small town but its railroad connection made it logistically important. After the Battle of Meridian in 1864, General Sherman all but burnt the town to the ground. After the war, the town was rebuilt and quickly grew as a manufacturing center and railroad hub, and was actually the largest city in the state from 1890 to 1930. In the midst of this boom-time, Meridian’s most famous son, Jimmie Rodgers was born. He would grow up to be known as the “Father of Country Music”, although much of his style was more closely associated with the blues music he heard as a young man working for the railroad. Meridian today is a beautiful small city with a population of around 40,000. While the trains still roll through downtown, Meridian’s economy has diversified with two nearby military bases, a major regional hospital and Peavey Electronics Corporation. I’ve enjoyed watching the Renaissance of the downtown area in recent years, and the new MAX Museum is a great addition to the city. On my most recent visit, I saw a lot of new businesses opening with many more in the works which really made me happy. Of course, a stop at Weidman’s Restaurant has been a must since it opened in 1870. If you’re ever on this side of Mississippi, stop in for a night or two, you’ll be glad you did. Mississippi’s Queen City is sure to win your heart as it has mine.
Greenwood, Mississippi captured my heart the first time I visited it a little over four years ago. As I pulled over the bridge into the heart of downtown, I found quiet streets, well maintained historic buildings, wonderful restaurants steeped in tradition and some of the friendliest people in the world. Since that first visit, I’ve returned as often as I could, sometimes just to enjoy a nice meal, wander the beautiful downtown area and sit by the river and read my book. There are even speakers on the streets around town providing a soundtrack to the city, something I always forget until I’m there and then it has me grinning from ear to ear. Greenwood is called the Gateway to the Delta, and is truly one of the nicest towns not just in Mississippi, but in the entire South.
The land on which the city of Greenwood now sits was once Choctaw Indian land, but was ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. The Chief of the Choctaw at that time was Greenwood LeFlore, from whom the town would take its name. Greenwood would become prosperous as a shipping town, transporting cotton to markets in St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. When the railroad came through in the 1880s, it would cement Greenwood as a transportation hub and a cotton center of the region for years to come. Today, Greenwood is home to the Viking Range Corporation, a major employer in the city. Viking has done a great job of utilizing many of the historic buildings in town instead of knocking them down and building new ones, leaving the downtown area’s historic charm intact. The 2011 film The Help was filmed in Greenwood, as was the 1991 Denzel Washington movie Mississippi Masala. I’m surprised more movies haven’t been filmed here as it really is a quintessential small Southern city…
Columbus charmed me from the minute I arrived. It is a lovely, small city of about 25,000 located in eastern Mississippi on the Tombigbee River. Columbus, called The Friendly City, is the county seat of Lowndes County, and boasts one of the most beautiful county courthouses in the state. It forms one point of the “Golden Triangle” with nearby Starkville and West Point. Founded in 1819, Columbus has some wonderful historic homes, churches and businesses, and won the Great American Main Street Award in 2010. The town briefly served as the Mississippi State Capitol in 1863 when Union forces occupied Jackson. Nearby Columbus Air Force Base is the main driver of the city’s economy, but Columbus is also home to the Mississippi University for Women (called “The W” locally). Playwright Tennessee Williams was born in Columbus, and his birthplace now serves as both a hometown tribute to Williams, and the town’s Welcome Center. Catfish Alley, the city’s old African-American Business District was once a thriving community in which some of Mississippi’s great blues musicians played. Bukka White even wrote a song about the area in 1969 called Columbus Mississippi Blues.. Friendship Cemetery is one of several places in the country which claims the origin of our Memorial Day and has some beautiful and moving monuments and memorials.
Today, you’ll find a quiet and friendly city with some wonderful restaurants, beautiful antebellum homes and a classically Southern, Mississippian and American downtown. Highlights for me were definitely the Stephen D. Lee Home, the Tennessee Williams Birthplace, the cemetery, a stand-alone barber’s pole and just wandering the historic district and seeing the beautiful homes to be found there. I found Columbus to be welcoming and beautiful and really enjoyed my visit. My camera was also very busy during my stay, and I hope you enjoy these photos from my time in The Friendly City of the Black Prairies.
West Point, Mississippi is a pleasant, medium sized town in Clay County in the east-central part of the state. Perhaps best known as the hometown of legendary bluesman Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett, I found it to be a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. There are some beautiful old buildings, some delightful parks and some wonderful murals and artwork, all packed into a compact and walkable downtown area. Originally home to Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, the French, Spanish and British also vied for control of the region. The town itself was originally laid out as a railroad town when the Mobile and Ohio Line came through in 1858. It would grow as part of the state’s Black Belt as cotton production became Alabama’s main industry. While I couldn’t find the origin of the name West Point (interesting to me because it’s in the east of the state), Clay County was named for the Great Compromiser, Kentucky’s Henry Clay. Because of the railroad, West Point was a strategic target during the Civil War, although the only real skirmish was a small one and occurred in 1864. November 2nd, 1909 was an exciting day in town when President William Howard Taft’s train pulled into the station and he addressed the townspeople from his rail car before heading on to Columbus.
When I visited West Point, I sadly found the Howlin’ Wolf Museum closed. While I waited for a call back from the man who runs it, I grabbed my camera and went for a wander. While I was there, the clouds cleared and I found a wonderful, clean, well-kept downtown with a distinctly small-town feel to it. I loved the City Hall building, City Park, the town’s stoic churches, the old Ritz Theater, some beautiful art projects scattered around town and some really cute small businesses on Main and Commerce Streets. While I never did get into the museum (they’re building a new one in a vacant storefront on Commerce Street), I’m still glad I stopped. There wasn’t much going on when I was there, and I was okay with that. A beautiful town on a sunny day is always something to write home about. Thanks for a wonderful visit, West Point; I hope to be back when the new museum is open for business.
Water Valley is an endearing small town of about 3400 people in Yalobusha County in North-Central Mississippi. Settlers began moving to the area after the treaties of Dancing Rabbit Creek and Pontotoc which would push the native Choctaw and Chickasaw people out of the area. Cotton plantations began to spring up in the region with most of the cotton traveling to market along the Yalobusha and Yocona Rivers. Then the Mississippi Central Railroad came to town in 1860 and Water Valley became a bit of a boom town. Beautiful Victorian homes were built and downtown was thriving. The Civil War came to Water Valley in 1862 when Union forces occupied the town. After the war, Water Valley would thrive again, but when rail traffic was diverted elsewhere the town would begin a long slow decline. Some time around 2008, Water Valley underwent a renaissance as people began to discover a beautiful town with cheap real estate and empty storefronts. Today, Water Valley is starting to come into its own yet again. If it weren’t in the heart of Central Mississippi, I might even call it “hip”. It’s still quiet and a little sleepy, but you can feel renewal in the air. As I walked around, I saw a lot of people working in the empty buildings and turning them into something fresh and new. Meanwhile, Turnage Drugstore which has been in operation since 1905, is still at the heart of the community and remains a great place to visit, grab an ice cream and catch up on the gossip (and get your prescriptions filled too, I assume). I really enjoyed this delightful little town…
