Mississippi

The history of Jackson is filled with gripping tales of horrors and heroism. Join Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman as they reveal the hidden past of the City with Soul.

A recording company founded in the mid-1960s with the expectation of competing with New Orleans and Memphis was a national success, outlasting its better-funded rivals. Known as the "Devil's Backbone," the Natchez Trace is the graveyard for countless travelers slain by the road's numerous serial killers, brigands and land pirates. Yet one mass grave stands above the others: the Boyd Mounds, which hold the remains of thirty-one Choctaws. Although legend has it that the father of Jackson, Louis LeFleur, was a Canadian trapper famous in high society for his dancing, the truth is even stranger.

On April 7, 1870, an act of the state legislature created Lincoln County, named for Pres. Abraham Lincoln, from Lawrence, Franklin, Copiah, Pike, and Amite Counties. Settlement began more than 50 years earlier with Samuel Jayne's small trading post on St. Stephens Road. Extensive timber resources, the arrival of the railroad in 1857, and the 1859 founding of Whitworth Female College put the county on the map. Logging, lumber mills, and other industries brought scores of people to the region. The agricultural endeavors of cotton and farming provided a way of life before the oil boom of the 1940s. The varied ethnic and religious history of the residents further shaped the county into what exists today.

Fulton is one of the oldest cities in northern Mississippi. Established on May 11, 1837, by an act of the Mississippi legislature, the city is the northernmost town on the Tombigbee River, located less than 10 miles south of that river's headwaters. Fulton was settled by hardy pioneers seeking new opportunities in the newly available lands of Mississippi's Chickasaw Cession. From its first days, Fulton was the center of commercial activity in Itawamba County, as well as the home to county government. During the Civil War and Reconstruction, the town declined, until a period of new growth and activity took place during the early 20th century. At that time, the timber industry became a lucrative venture, and the Mississippian Railway was established, connecting Fulton to the Frisco Railroad in Amory, 20 miles to the south. Fulton is now home to Itawamba Community College and is adjacent to the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, one of the largest inland waterways in the nation.

This narrative history of Hattiesburg, MS illustrates the people, places, and events that have shaped its cultural and natural history.

Founded by William Hardy at the confluence of rivers and rail lines, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is today a capital of education, healthcare, commerce and the armed forces in the Gulf South. In this new biography of the Hub City, experience its story as you never have before. Hunt and forage alongside Native American tribes centuries before European settlement. Build a cabin with pioneer lumbermen on the edge of the forest, jostling for profit in the cavernous Piney Woods. Train with soldiers at Camp Shelby on the eve of deployment in World War II, and march alongside civil rights activists during Freedom Summer in 1964. In this narrative history, author and Hattiesburg native Benjamin Morris offers a captivating account of the Hub City from its prehistory to the present day, from its darkest hours to its brightest futures.

Cross City was founded in 1854 by surveyors Houston Mitchell and Hamilton Mask where the Mobile & Ohio Railroad intersected with the Memphis & Charleston line, the only such site of its kind in the west at that time. Following the widespread Victorian fad of naming towns after classical locations, in 1855, Cross City was renamed "Corinth" after the famous crossroads of ancient Greece. Located only 10 miles from the Tennessee-Mississippi state line, Corinth has a long and colorful history of strategic importance to the entire country.

Hattiesburg was dubbed ""The Hub City"" because of its geographic relationship to six great Southern cities.

On a map, it appears to be the center of a great wheel, with railroad lines fanning out like spokes to New Orleans, Natchez, Jackson, Meridian, Gulfport, and Mobile. This intersection has been a pivotal part of the founding, early history, and continuing role that Hattiesburg plays in the economic and cultural development of the Southeastern United States. Images of America: Hattiesburg covers the city's founding by William H. Hardy, the impact of the lumber industry and the railroads, the educational institutions that benefited from the largess of local timber tycoons, the illicit fight that made John L. Sullivan the last bare-knuckle heavyweight boxing champion of the world, and scenes of city and rural life in the 1920s.

From the hills to the coast, the people of Mississippi have stories to tell. Most would never guess that Raleigh, Mississippi, once played host to the National Tobacco Spitting Contest. Over in Okolona, children are told of the man who lived--and died--deep down in a hole and scared passersby. From the gandy dancers who built the first train tracks in Mississippi to the eight-foot-tall man who lived in the woods of Columbia, read tales that range from common myth to a good bit of righteous gossip. Author and storyteller Diane Williams traveled across the Magnolia State to gather these local legends and has compiled them into an inquisitive, laugh-out-loud collection.

In 1940, the town of Clinton had scarcely grown in size or population since the Civil War. However, the coming of World War II forever changed the identity of this small Southern college town. Aside from the sudden departure of its best and brightest men and women for the front lines, global war touched Clinton in the form of a German POW camp and a Navy V12 training school at Mississippi College. Clinton: 1940-1980 picks up where author Chad Chisholm ended his previous book, with Clinton in the midst of postwar growth. It is a chronicle of Clinton's living history, a treasury of photographs for all Clintonians.