Happy Valentine’s Day y’all. Today I wanted to share with you a beautiful if tragic love story from the tiny town of Kosciusko, Mississippi. To my understanding, Laura Van Mitchell was born in Mississippi in 1852. In her late teens she married Clement Clay Kelly, a banker and businessman from Kosciusko who was seven years her senior. Clay, as he was called, was the owner and president of C.C. Kelly Banking Company which was the last private bank in Attala County (the bank would eventually go under, on Valentines Day in 1914). Laura and Clay were happy together and had five children: Lillian, Samuel, Otho, Alta and Leland. The couple were building a beautiful new Victorian home for their family at 309 East Jefferson Street when Laura, at only 38 years old, passed away in 1890.
Heartbroken, Clay wanted to build a lasting monument to his beautiful wife. He commissioned an Italian sculptor to create a likeness of her and sent photos and even her beautiful Victorian wedding gown for the sculptor to work with . The resulting statue, which has stood watch over Laura’s grave for over 130 years, is truly stunning. Clay then instructed his builders to add a third story to his new house so that he could see the statue of his lovely wife from his window.
Central Mississippi geographic names pay tribute to our two most famous foreign-born Revolutionary War heroes. Lafayette County, which has Oxford as its county seat, is named for the French Marquis de Lafayette, and the county seat of Attala County is the tiny town of Kosciusko, named in honor of the Polish-born Tadeusz Kosciuszko. Koscuszko grew up attending military schools in Europe, and in 1776, at the age of 30, happened to be in Paris and heard about the American War for Independence. Making his way across the ocean, he volunteered in George Washington’s Army and would rise to the rank of Brigadier General. There are many lasting tributes to Kosciuszko around the country and the world including a garden at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and National Memorial in Philadelphia, an island in Alaska and a wonderful statue in Lafayette Park in my hometown of Washington D.C.
The Mississippi city which now bears his name was once a simple campsite along the Natchez Trace Trail known as Red Bud Springs. At some point, a tavern and blacksmith shop were built to provide for travelers making their way up the Trace. Over time this settlement grew, and would eventually be chosen as the county seat of the new Attala County.
Kosciusko is a friendly and welcoming town which centers around a stunning town square. It gets its nickname, The Beehive of the Hills because it is the industrial and retail trade center of the region (there are beehive sculptures around the square which I mistook as pineapples when I arrived). Kosciusko is probably best known as the hometown of Oprah Winfrey, but bluesman Charlie Musselwhite also hails from the town. As did James Meredith, the first African-American student to attend Ole Miss. I loved my visit to this beautiful little community where I stopped off for the night as travelers have for centuries. It was really quiet when I visited, despite it being Saturday evening, and I almost felt like I had the square to myself. The twilight was perfect for taking these photos, and the sky was a wonderful blue when I went back in the morning. I hope you enjoy these pictures of beautiful downtown Kosciusko, Mississippi - The Beehive of the Hills..
Hi Guys, it’s that time of the week again. It’s been another great week on the road in Mississippi, and I’m happy to share some of the highlights with you here. My week started in Cascilla in the rural center of the state, led me on a quick loop through the Delta with night stops in Cleveland, Clarksdale and Greenwood and is ending right here in beautiful but rainy Vicksburg. It’s been a week of beautiful towns, incredible food, good music and some really great photo opportunities. Despite the gloomy weather which has been a pretty constant companion this week, my spirits are high and I’m enjoying myself out here. I’m finding some good balance and trying to stress less and enjoy more. In all, it’s been a pretty awesome week out here.
Storms came hard in Central Mississippi as my week began, with hail, tornadoes and damaging wind. I was grateful to my friend John and his family for giving me shelter from the storm last Wednesday night (and for two nights before that). By the time I left Thursday morning, the worst of the storms had passed although the clouds persisted. Shadow Catcher was a whole different vehicle with new shocks, and we no longer bounce down the road like Tigger. That would come in really handy on the less-than-ideal roads of the Delta. I went with stiffer shocks because it’s a big van, so it’s not a smooth ride, but it’s enormously improved on what it was last week.
Decending from John’s place in the hills and heading west on Route 8, I came out into the beautiful, pancake-flat Mississippi Delta. Cotton fields hemmed in the road, and the familiar sights of rusted out cars in front of old sharecroppers’ cabins made me feel like I was once again on familiar ground…
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.
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.
Hello Everyone,
It’s great to see you, and I’d like to extend a very warm welcome to our new subscribers this week, I’m happy that you’re here. It’s been a pretty quiet week here in Mississippi, but a busy one as well. I haven’t done a lot of traveling, but I’ve been to some pretty cool places and met some wonderful people. This week has brought me from Columbus back through to middle of the state with stops in French Camp, Kosciusko and Winona. I spent a couple of nights Cascilla in a pretty rural part of the state with my friend John and his family, and then wound up the week traveling northwest into the Mississippi Delta. Of all the time I’ve spent in Mississippi in the past, most of it has been in the Delta, so it’s pretty comfortable to me. I love it here, and have always been fascinated by the music and the culture. Sadly, I know that poverty levels in the Delta are high, and that this factor contributes to both the music and culture of the region, but I’ve also seen the region develop a reasonable tourism industry in the 15 years or so I’ve been coming here, and hope conditions continue to improve for the area’s residents. Regardless of any of that though, it’s always great to be back in the Delta.
When we last we spoke, I had just pulled into Columbus, in the far east of the state near the Alabama border. My first impressions of the town were good, but my lasting impressions were even better. I really found it to be a delightful and hospitable town full of history with surprises around every corner.
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…
Holly Springs was founded in 1836 on land previously occupied by the Chickasaw people after the Treaty of Pototoc Crreek forced them west. New settlers came to the region quickly and scrambled to buy up land and start planting cotton. As the county seat, Holly Springs grew rapidly as well and even more-so when the Mississippi Central Railroad came through in 1855. During the Civil War, the strategic nature of the railroad came into play and Holly Springs was occupied by Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee. Confederate Cavalry Commander Earl Van Dorn rode into Holly Springs before dawn on December 20th, 1862. The surprise attack temporarily cut off the Union supply route as Van Dorn’s men took all the supplies they could carry and burned the rest. After the war, Holly Springs would resume its role as a cotton center and railroad hub. Rust College was established in Holly Springs in 1866 to help educated newly freed slaves in the area. The college is still in operation today, making it one of the oldest Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the South.
Holly Springs today is a pleasant town of about 7500. I was thrilled to see construction going on while I was there and to find a Mississippi town which is growing and improving instead of deteriorating. There are a number of wonderful Antebellum homes to see in town, and the bustling town square has several restaurants and coffee shops when you get hungry. When I was there, I stopped in to the Visitors Center and spoke with Jamie who was super helpful in pointing out all the wonderful things Holly Springs has to offer. It should definitely be your first stop when you go to visit. I had a great day in Holly Springs and loved taking the photos you’ll see in this post. It’s a town on the rise, and I look forward to seeing how far it’s gotten the next time I’m in town.
Hi Everyone, I hope this week’s This Week finds you all well. It’s almost February and I see spring at the end of the tunnel. It’s been a good week out here on the road, my first full week in Mississippi, with plenty of things to keep me occupied. I’ve visited some cool small towns, learned somefascinating history, eaten at some wonderful restaurants and caught up with friends old and new. It’s been good to be back on the road. Before I get started recapping my week for you, I want to give a big Thank You Shout Out to Todd, one of my subscribers, who sent me a huge list of recommendations for my time in Mississippi. Many thanks, Todd, your recommendations will come in really handy in the weeks ahead.
After leaving y’all last week, I did make my way out to the tiny town of Jacinto. The town was founded in 1836 and named for the Battle of San Jacinto in the Texas Revolution. It became the county seat of Tishomingo County and a stately two-story courthouse was built. In 1869, Tishomingo County was divided into three counties, Tishomingo, Alcorn and Prentiss, and the county seat of the new, smaller Tishomingo County was moved to Iuka. The town declined to the point where the courthouse was sold for scrap. Thankfully some concerned citizens stepped in to save the courthouse and the town. Nothing is open there in the winter, but it was still neat to wander around the courthouse and some of the buildings. It was really quiet and pleasant and there are a few houses and cars around so it’s not quite a ghost town, but it’s close. I did get a bit of a scare when I stood on my tip-toes to get a glance through the window and saw a life-like mannequin inside the courthouse. My heart jumped out of my chest.
From Jacinto, I headed down to Brices Crossroads Battlefield and wanted to visit the small Mississippi’s Final Stands Interpretive Center but unfortunately they had recently sustained some tornado damage…
It’s always interesting to me to find how interconnected history can be. I never thought in a million years when I pulled into tiny Iuka, Mississippi that I would end up stumbling into the summer home of Colonel Robert C. Brinkley, the builder of the famed Peabody Hotel in Memphis. I found it even more interesting that it was this house which served as the headquarters of Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War. This story sent me down a lot of rabbit holes, but I found the whole thing really fascinating.
Robert C. Brinkley, or “R.C.” as he was known, was born in Chatham County, North Carolina in 1816. He studied law at the Bingham School in North Carolina and moved to Tennessee when he was 20 and went to work as an attorney. Two years later, he married Ann Overton and they would have two children together. When Ann passed away in 1845, R.C. left his law practice and started focusing on real estate. He went on to become the president of the Memphis branch of Planters Bank, and began selling stock in the Memphis to Charleston Railroad.
It was during this time that R.C. traveled to London to try and raise money to purchase the rails necessary to complete this line. There, he met and befriended banker and financier George Peabody (whose finance business would be renamed J.P. Morgan after his death…
The tiny town of Iuka, Mississippi (population 3,000) was founded by David Hubbard in 1857 along the route of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Built on the sight of an old Chickasaw Indian village, the town takes its name from one of the chiefs of that village, Chief Ish-ta-ki-yu-ka-tubbe . Iuka (pronounced “aye-you-ka”) was the site of the Battle of Iuka during the Civil War, an engagement between Union General Rosecrans’ Army of the Mississippi and Confederate General Sterling Price’s Confederate Army of the West. The battle resulted in over 2300 casualties before Price withdrew his troops and marched on to join General Van Dorn in the 2nd Battle of Corinth. The Brinkley House, also called Dunrobin, was used as General Grant’s Headquarters during the battle, and is a really cool antebellum home.
Today, Iuka is a charming little town with a cute downtown area and a wonderful park. The park’s centerpiece is the Iuka Mineral Springs, where natural spring water flows for all to enjoy. I really liked this park for some reason and enjoyed taking photos of the old playground equipment which reminded me of the things I played on when I was a kid. Iuka has a beautiful War Memorial and a history museum in their old courthouse which was sadly closed during my visit. There were also several beautiful churches and some neat looking shops. Much like my visit to Corinth, short days and cold weather kept me from exploring too far afield, but I thought Iuka was an adorable little town and that these photos would give you a feel for my visit.
