Hey y’all, it’s time for another edition of This Week on the Road. It’s going to be a short one this week because I only really spent the first couple of days of the week on the road. Since Saturday I’ve been relaxing here in New Orleans, spending time with my friends and enjoying the Mardi Gras weekend. I did have a great few days along the coast to wind up my time in Mississippi though, and wanted to share what I got up to out there.
My week started in Pascagoula in the rain, but I quickly moved on to Ocean Springs. I really liked this quaint and quiet seaside town with its thriving artists community, pleasant bars, and good restaurants. It seemed like a vibrant and livable place. My first stop was a restaurant I’ve wanted to get to for a while: The Shed Barbecue and Blues Joint. The Shed is a South Mississippi Institution, and occupies a huge, ramshackle building just north of the interstate. The Shed is the kind of place that chains have been trying to emulate for a long time, but with little success. The place is full of old beer and traffic signs, mismatched furniture and dollar bills hanging from the ceiling. It’s the real deal though with great food, wonderful employees and an all around good feel to it. I went with the ShedHed Sampler which came with all seven of their smoked meats and three sides. For $26 I didn’t expect too much, but what came out was amazing. It was a tray piled high with food, enough to fill me up that night, and also for lunch and dinner the next day as well. It was a great meal and experience and I will definitely come back to The Shed in the future. After dinner, I went for some live music and a few beers at the Glory Bound Gyro Co. on Government Street. It was a little chilly, but not too cold to enjoy the outdoor seating area which had a beachy feel to it. I sat by the palm tree and enjoyed some acoustic music there, and later popped in for a quick beer at a place called The Juke Joint. I really liked this divey bar in a hundred year old house a mile or so from the main part of downtown as well.
Give me an out-of-the-way place with history, visual appeal and live music and I’m a happy man. Throw in good company and great food and I could be there for awhile. Such was the case on my recent visit to historic Taylor Grocery in tiny Taylor, Mississippi, which is only about 20 minutes from The Square in downtown Oxford, but feels a world away.
During my stay in Oxford, I spent time with several different friends from several very different tperiods in my life, and every single one of them told me I had to visit Taylor Grocery before I left. My friend Luke Fisher happened to be playing a show there the Saturday night I was in town, so that pretty much sealed the deal on my visit. And so it was that I set out down the Old Taylor Road to see what all the fuss was about.
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…
