Greenville is a city in Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 41,633 at the 2000 census, but according to the 2007 census bureau estimates, has since declined to 36,178. It is the county seat of Washington County. Greenville is also the largest city in Mississippi north of the I-20 corridor.
Greenville was named after American Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene.Nathanael Greene (August 7, 1742 – June 19, 1786) was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. When the war began, Greene was a militia private, the lowest rank possible; he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer. Many places in the United States are named for him.
Greenville is located on the eastern bank of Lake Ferguson, an oxbow lake left from an old channel of the Mississippi River. A floating casino is located on the lake near the downtown area. Chicago Mill and Lumber Co. operated a lumber mill on the lake .2 mile south of the casino levee parking lot; the mill specialized in making hardwood boxes until it closed. The Winterville Mounds Historic Site, with museum and picnic area, is located just north of the town at 2415 Highway 1 N; the Indian mounds were built by a tribe that predated the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian tribes.
Air
Northwest Airlines
Mid Delta Regional Airport, located northeast of downtown Greenville, serves the city and the greater Greenville metropolitan region. It has commercial air service provided by Northwest Airlink to Northwest Airlines hub at Memphis.
Mid Delta Regional Airport (IATA: GLH, ICAO: KGLH) is a public airport located five miles (8 km) northeast of the city of Greenville in Washington County, Mississippi, USA. The airport has two runways. It is mostly used for general aviation, but is also served by one commercial airline.
Highway
U.S. Highway 82, U.S. Highway 61 and the Great River Road(Mississippi Highway 1) are the main transportation arteries through the Greenville area. U.S. Highway 82 is a major part of the Mississippi Delta's transportation network, as it connects to Interstate 55 and other major four-lane highways. Construction is currently underway on a new four-lane Greenville Bridge to cross the Mississippi River south of Greenville into Lake Village, Arkansas. This $206 million cable-stayed span once completed, will be the longest of its kind in the continental United States. It will replace the Benjamin G. Humphreys Bridge as the primary bridge.
The Great River Road
U.S. Highway 61
U.S. Highway 82
The Greenville Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge crossing the Mississippi River between the U.S. states of Arkansas and Mississippi.
View of the Greenville Bridge from the old bridge.The main span of the bridge was completed April 17, 2006, but has yet to open to traffic. When the approach roads are finished in early 2009, the bridge will carry US 82 (and, until the Charles W. Dean Bridge is built, US 278) across the river between Lake Village, Arkansas and Greenville, Mississippi. While the river is the commonly accepted state line, the official line lies on the east bank due to the river having shifted slightly westward since the boundary was set. Because of this, the Greenville Bridge is technically located entirely in Arkansas.
Benjamin G. Humphreys BridgeThe Benjamin G. Humphreys Bridge is a two lane cantilever bridge carrying US 82 and US 278 across the Mississippi River between Lake Village, Arkansas and Greenville, Mississippi. The bridge is named for Benjamin G. Humphreys II, a former United States Congressman from Greenville. A new bridge, the Greenville Bridge, is being built as a replacement slightly downriver. This is because the bridge is a navigation hazard for vehicles on the bridge as well as barges going underneath the bridge.
While the Mississippi River is the commonly accepted state line, the official line lies on the east bank due to the river shifting slightly westward. Because of this, the main span of the bridge is located entirely in Arkansas.
Until the Charles W. Dean Bridge is constructed, US 278 will cross the Mississippi River at Greenville.
Education
Most of Greenville is served by the Greenville Public School District, while a small portion of the city lies in the Western Line School District.
The private schools, Washington School and Greenville Christian School, also serve the city; as well as the parochial schools, St. Joseph High School and Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary (which are part of the Diocese of Jackson).
Leadership In Greenville Schools
The Greenville Public School District is a public school district based in Greenville, Mississippi (USA).
The Western Line School District is a public school district based in the community of Avon, Mississippi (USA).
In addition to Avon, the district serves the town of Metcalfe, a small portion of Greenville, as well as the unincorporated communities of Glen Allan, Riverside, and Wayside in Washington County. A small portion of northwestern Issaquena County lies within the district
Washington School is a small, non-denominational, private school in Greenville, Mississippi. Washington School offers pre-school, elementary, middle, and college preparatory education to Greenville and the surrounding areas.
Second Grade Presents "It's a Jungle out There"
History
Washington School was established in the spring of 1969, possibly as a response to government imposed integration in public schools. In its first year, Washington School had a total of 23 staff members and 323 students. Classes were originally held in the current elementary building. The current total enrollment is over 750 students with the average size of a graduating class being around 60 students. Washington School has faced some criticism because the city of Greenville is around 70 percent black while Washington School currently has few black students. However, this is probably because a large percentage of blacks in the Greenville area statistically cannot afford the tuition at Washington School, rather than being due to racist attitudes. In fact, there have been a few black graduates from Washington School.
Greenville Christian School
School History
Written by Phillip Swindall
Greenville Christian School was formulated in the minds of concerned Christian parents from Christ Wesleyan Methodist Church. The school opened in late August, 1969, at the the Greenville Hotel with thirty-seven students in grades one through nine.
In 1972, the new facility at Highway 1 south was completed, and the fall class began. The school grew rapidly, and increased enrollment necessitated additional classrooms.
In 1979, the school was recognized under the governing body of the Greenville Christian School Parents' Association.
Since 1983, four new classrooms have been added, an athletic/training building has been constructed and a large science complex has been completed.
The school is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Mississippi Private School Asscociation.
Greenville Christian School admits students of any race, color, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, and athletic and other school administered programs.
Nickname(s): The Heart & Soul Of The Delta Motto: The Best Food, Shopping, & Entertainment In The South
History
It's amazing to think that the first organized parish school in Greenville opened in October of 1888. St. Rose of Lima Academy was opened under the leadership of Father P. J. Korstenbrock and was staffed by the Sisters of Mercy. The school that the sisters opened began a rich tradition of excellent education in the Delta area, one that is still strong after 116 years.
Within three years, facilities were added to accommodate boarding students from nearby plantations. By the 1930's enrollment in the school had grown to almost 200 students. By 1947 enrollment had increased to 245 with 39% of the school's population being non-Catholic.
In 1948, due to the increasing enrollment and deteriorating condition of the Academy building, work began on a new building. Originally designed to educate 400 students, St. Joseph School was dedicated in May of 1950 by by bishop Richard Gerow. Located on Golf Street, the school served students in grades 1-12, and by the mid 1950's included one of the cities first organized kindergarten programs.
As Catholic education flourished in the early 1960's, enrollment continued to rise. As a result of this increase, St. Joseph Catholic Church initiated the construction of Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School, which opened on East Reed Road in 1964. After kindergarten through sixth grade moved to Lourdes, the building on Golf Street (now known as St. Joseph High School) provided students in grades 7-12 with a quality Catholic education. An increasing enrollment at St. Joseph in the late 1980's prompted the construction of four additional classrooms.
Memories of the "old days" remain strong and dear. Alumni today, now parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends of our current students, fill the stands at athletic competitions and seats at the honors programs and graduations. Traditions are celebrated as before. Past graduates can be proud of the young people who have received the legacy of a Catholic education. They will pass this legacy on to others in the decades to come.
Welcome to Our Lady of Lourdes
The mission of the St. Joseph Catholic Schools is to provide a Catholic faith-based education offered in a safe, academically challenging, and creative environment.
It is the desire of Our Lady of Lourdes School that its students go forth with an understanding of their potentials as persons whose destinies not only include, but also transcend this life. Each individual will grow to be a responsible, self-disciplined citizen in a vacillating democratic society, be equipped to make not only a living, but also more importantly, a life.
Sports
The Mississippi Miracles, formerly the Mississippi Stingers are an American Basketball Association franchise in Greenville.
The Mississippi Miracles is an American Basketball Association (ABA) and World Basketball Association team based in Cleveland, Mississippi. The team began play in the fall of 2004 as the Mississippi Stingers. They finished in 1st place in the Blue Division with a 19-3 record. They lost in the semi-finals of the playoffs to the Arkansas RimRockers 117-105. In January, 2006, new ownership purchased the team and renamed it as the Mississippi Miracles.
Notable people:
Greenville was the birthplace of,
Puppeteer, Jim Henson,James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990), was one of the most widely known puppeteers in American television history.[1] He was the creator of The Muppets and the leading force behind their long run in the television series Sesame Street and The Muppet Show and films such as The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Dark Crystal (1982). He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
When Henson died on May 16, 1990, his sudden death resulted in an outpouring of public and professional affection. There have since been numerous tributes and dedications in his memory. Henson’s companies, which are now run by his children, continue to produce films and television shows.
On September 26, 1992, Mr. Henson was posthumously awarded the Courage of Conscience Award for being a "Humanitarian, muppeteer, producer and director of films for children that encourage tolerance, interracial values, equality and fair play."
Singer Mary Wilson of the Supremes,Mary Wilson (born March 6, 1944) is an American singer best known as a member of the Motown soul and pop group The Supremes. Wilson was the only Supreme who remained in the group from the time it was formed in 1959, as The Primettes, until the very end, when the group was disbanded in 1977. The Supremes (Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, and later, Cindy Birdsong along with Mary Wilson) enjoyed twelve US number-one hit records.
Author Shelby Foote,Shelby Dade Foote, Jr. (November 17, 1916 – June 27, 2005) was an American novelist and a noted historian of the American Civil War, writing a massive, three-volume history of the war entitled The Civil War: A Narrative. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the Old South to the Civil Rights era of the New South. Foote was relatively unknown to the general public for most of his career until his appearance in Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Civil War in 1990, where he introduced a generation of Americans to a war that he believed was "central to all our lives."
Foote was born in Greenville, Mississippi, the son of Lillian (née Rosenstock) and Shelby Dade Foote, whose father, a planter, had gambled away most of his fortune and assets. Foote's maternal grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna, but Foote was raised in his father's and maternal grandmother's Episcopalian religion. As Foote's father advanced through the executive ranks of Armour and Company, the young family lived in Greenville, Jackson, Vicksburg, Pensacola, Florida, and Mobile, Alabama. Foote's father died in Mobile when Foote was five years old, and he and his mother moved back to Greenville. Foote was an only child, and his mother never remarried. When Foote was 15 years old, Walker Percy and his brothers LeRoy and Phin moved to Greenville to live with family following the death of their mother. Foote began a lifelong fraternal and literary relationship with Walker, both of whom had great influence on each other's writing.
Shelby Foote (1916-2005) is the author of the three-volume history, The Civil War. Among his other novels are Shiloh; Love in a Dry Season; September, September; and Follow Me Down. Foote is also the editor of Chickamauga and Other Civil War Stories and The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy. His honors include three Guggenheim Fellowships, a Ford Foundation Grant, the Ingersoll Award, and the 1999 Cleanth Brooks Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Southern Letters.
Pro-baseball player Frank White,
Frank White, Jr. (born September 4, 1950 in Greenville, Mississippi) is a former Major League Baseball player, and coach for the Kansas City Royals and their AA affiliate, the Wichita Wranglers. He currently works in the Royals front office.
In 1995, White's number 20 was retired alongside George Brett and Dick Howser.
White was born in Greenville, Mississippi. After going to college at Longview Community in Lee's Summit, Missouri, he rose through the minors to reach the big leagues. Though initially disliked by fans because he displaced the popular Cookie Rojas at second base, he went on to set a major-league record jointly with teammate George Brett, by appearing in 1,914 games together. The record stood until 1995, when it was broken by the Detroit Tigers' Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker. In 1980, White was the Most Valuable Player of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees, leading the Royals to their first World Series appearance.
A smooth fielder, White was a five-time All-Star. He won the Gold Glove Award eight times, including six consecutive seasons from 1977 to 1982. In 1977 he played 62 consecutive errorless games.
Although in his early years he was a singles hitter who contributed little to the Royals' run column, White improved markedly as an offensive player during his career, hitting 22 home runs two years in a row, in 1985 and 1986. Since the 1985 World Series was played without the designated hitter, White hit cleanup during that series, in place of Hal McRae.
In 1995, White's number 20 was retired alongside George Brett and Dick Howser.White retired as a player in 1990 after 18 major-league seasons. On May 2, 1995, the Royals retired White's number 20, and the same year he was inducted into the Royals' Hall of Fame. A bronze statue of White was dedicated outside of Kauffman Stadium in 2004, joining Royals founders Ewing & Muriel Kauffman, George Brett, and Buck O'Neil.
Archaeologist Theresa Helbach,and pioneering Chinese American journalist Sam Chu Lin.
Sam Chu Lin (1939 – 2006) was an American journalist. Born in Greenville, Mississippi, Lin died, at the age of 67, in Burbank, California on March 5, 2006. In the 1960s, he was one of the first Asian Americans to appear on-air on both radio and (in 1968) television, eventually working for all four major broadcast networks. Lin's career in broadcasting began in his hometown and later led him to Phoenix, New York City, San Francisco, and finally Los Angeles. It was with CBS News in New York that he first reached a national audience.
During his lifetime, Lin won several awards for his reporting and community service, and produced stories on the history of Asians in the U.S. for ABC and NBC. Lin's last broadcast news position before he died was as a freelancer for KTTV (Fox affiliate, Los Angeles), a position he held since 1995. He was also a frequent contributor to such Asian American publications as AsianWeek and Rafu Shimpo, as well as the San Francisco Examiner. His last published article is a feature story on efforts to preserve Phoenix's Sun Mercantile Building, dated March 3, 2006. Lin is survived by his wife, Judy, and two sons, Mark and Christopher.
Robert T. Henry It was also the hometown of World War II soldier and Medal of Honor recipient Robert T. Henry.
Robert T. Henry (November 27, 1923 – December 3, 1944) was a United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.
Robert T. Henry's GraveHenry joined the Army from his birth place of Greenville, Mississippi, and by December 3, 1944 was serving as a private in the 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. On that day, at Luchem, Germany, he single-handedly charged a German machine gun nest which was preventing the advance of his platoon. Although he was killed before reaching the nest, his attack provided a distraction which enabled his comrades to destroy the position. For this action, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor six months later, on June 12, 1945.
Henry, aged 21 at his death, was buried at Greenville Cemetery in his hometown of Greenville, Mississippi.
Greenville is the home town of the Percy family, U.S. Senator Le Roy Percy,
LeRoy Percy (November 9, 1860– December 24, 1929) was a wealthy planter from Greenville, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta. He attended the University of Virginia where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. He served as United States Senator from Mississippi from 1910 to 1913.
William PercyAuthors William Alexander Percy who took charge of the 1927 Mississippi Flood recovery effort and wrote the definitive Mississippi Delta autobiography Lanterns on the Levee,
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in United States history.
William Alexander Percy (May 14, 1885 – January 21, 1942), was a lawyer, planter and poet from Greenville, Mississippi. His autobiography Lanterns on the Levee (Knopf 1941) became a bestseller. His father LeRoy Percy was the last United States Senator from Mississippi elected by the legislature. And in that largely Protestant state, William championed the Roman Catholicism of his French mother.
and Walker Percy who wrote Love in the Ruins.
Named after his grandfather, the Civil War hero William Alexander "Gray Eagle" Percy, Will Percy also served in the Army with honor and valor during World War I. But in his heart he was a poet and a writer.
Born on May 15, 1885, only seven months after his parents' marriage, Will was a small and frail child. Although he idolized his father, LeRoy Percy, Will possessed a romantic spirit his father could not understand or appreciate. Will grew up lonely and at a distance from his father, always searching for ways to win his approval.
A gifted student, Will attended the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, just as three generations of Percys had done before him. Although the law did not interest him, Will later attended Harvard Law School and returned home to practice law in the family's Greenville, Mississippi, firm, as was expected of him.
In his years at the family firm Will accomplished little of note, but he avidly continued to write and edit poetry. To the indifference of Greenville society, Will was in fact a distinguished young poet. Greenville residents, however, preferred to speculate on why he remained unmarried and resided in his parents' home. Although his father had made quite a name for himself in business at a young age, Will remained in his father's shadow, dominated by his father's dazzling presence and the weight of the family name. It was not until Will returned from the Great War with the rank of Captain, the Croix de Guerre, and gold and silver stars that he earned his father's respect.
While his relationship with his father improved after World War I, Will remained known only for being his father's son. It was not until Will was 42 years old that he finally made his mark on Greenville. When the Great Flood devastated the Delta in 1927 and the Mounds Landing levee broke, LeRoy Percy took the unexpected step of putting Will in charge of the Washington County Relief Committee. The emergency placed the massive responsibility of caring for the flood's refugees on his shoulders.
With the Mississippi flood waters covering the entire Delta, the Greenville levee was the only high, safe place for thousands of refugees. The vast majority of the people stranded on the levee were African Americans, and they were desperate for food, potable drinking water and shelter. Will, raised by his father to care for African Americans and the less fortunate out of a sense of noblesse oblige and family honor, believed the only decent course of action was to evacuate the refugees.
His decision could not have been more at odds with the views of Greenville's planters. Petrified that once the refugees left, they'd never return, angry planters went straight to Will's father and denounced the decision to evacuate. Will's father sided with the planters over his son and put a stop to the evacuation.
From that day forth, Will Percy's leadership of the flood relief committee faltered. African Americans were virtually imprisoned on the levee and forced to work at gunpoint. Many refugees believed their treatment was comparable to slavery. Investigations would later show that the conditions in the Greenville camp were far and away the worst of any refugee site. On August 31, four months after the flood overran Greenville, Will resigned from his post. He sailed for Japan the very next day.
With LeRoy Percy's death in 1929, Will slowly emerged from his father's shadow, took charge of the family and became a patron of the arts. Over the course of his life he did much to improve conditions for African Americans in Washington County: he paid for the college education of young African Americans; allowed his tenants to buy their own land; protected them from police brutality; and ran his commissaries at cost. But he was never able to treat African Americans as his equals or restore the trust the African American community once had in the Percy family.
In the 1930s, Will adopted 3 orphaned cousins and brought them to Greenville to live with him in the Percy home, among them the future novelist Walker Percy.
Although he abandoned his poetry, he continued to write, and Will Percy's most enduring legacy remains his autobiography, Lanterns on the Levee, which has been in print for more than half a century since its publication.
Voices from the Flood What was it like for the residents of the Mississippi Delta in spring 1927, as torrential rains fell and the river rose steadily to flood stage? After the levees broke, what did people do to survive? How did the flood affect the Delta's population, ultimately?
One window into life during and after the flood is Delta blues music, which was blossoming in Mississippi at the time of the disaster. Blues artists from Bessie Smith to Barbecue Bob recorded over 30 songs related to the Great Flood of 1927. Though many blues performers did not personally experience the flood, they understood the hardships the Delta's predominantly African American sharecropper population faced.
After the flood, the Delta would never be the same. With their meager crops destroyed, and feeling deeply mistrustful of white Delta landlords after their poor treatment as refugees, thousands of African Americans left the area. Many headed north to seek their fortunes in Chicago. The blues migrated too, and Chicago became a center for African American music.
One Man's Experience
Born to an aristocratic white Mississippi family, Will Percy witnessed a seismic shift in his community following the 1927 flood. Percy's young cousin, the writer Walker Percy, remembered his relative, who adopted him and his brothers when they were orphaned in 1932:
"...his eyes were most memorable, a piercing gray-blue and strangely light in my memory, as changeable as shadows over water, capable of passing in an instant, we were soon to learn, from merriment -- he told the funniest stories we'd ever heard -- to a level gray gaze cold with reproof. They were beautiful and terrible eyes, eyes to be careful around. Yet now, when I try to remember them, I cannot see them other wise than as shadowed by sadness."
That sadness might have been inevitable given the circumstances of Percy's life. A misfit from the start, he struggled to adapt himself to the community leadership role he felt was his familial duty. Percy put himself in the crossfire of racial conflict after the 1927 flood, though he was ill-equipped to manage the crisis. Blind to shockingly bad conditions in the refugee camps he managed, Percy destroyed the fragile bond between blacks and whites in Greenville. Ultimately, he was unable to accept African Americans as his equals.
Read excerpts from Will Percy's 1941 memoir, Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son, to learn more about his life in the Mississippi Delta.
His Family
I was born and in May and on Ascension Day, and I have picked up the information that the incident overjoyed no one, because Father and Mother were young and good-looking, poor and well-born, in love with each other and with life, and they would have considered the blessed event more blessed had it been postponed a year or two. No matter how unfavorably I impressed them at the time, they impressed me not at all, and for a much longer period afterwards. I have no single memory of them dating from the first four years of my life.
As a youngster I had not loved Father deeply, though I had admired him boundlessly. He was stern, though he never corrected me, and shy and high-spirited at all the points where I was flat. During my religious period I resented his unchurchliness. I must have been a hard child to get close to. But now that I had learned a little sense, though not much, he was my chief delight.
Returning to Greenville After College and the War
My case was no different from most, I suppose, and I hated it: eight years of training for life, and here I was in the midst of it -- and my very soul whimpered. I had been pushed into the arena and didn't even know the animals' names. Besides, I labored under individual disabilities: I had been to Europe; I had been to Harvard; my accent, though not Northern, was -- well, tainted; I had had it easy; I probably considered myself it. For crowning handicap, I was blessed with no endearing vices: drunkenness made me sick, gambling bored me, rutting per se, unadorned, I considered overrated and degrading. In charitable mood, one might call me an idealist, but more normally, a sissy.
It must have been difficult for Father too. Enjoying good liquor, loving to gamble, his hardy vices merely under control, he sympathized quizzically and said nothing. But his heart must often have called piteously for the little brother I had lost, all boy, all sturdy obstreperous charm... Yet these handicaps on my debut were a minor worry. My real concern was what the show was all about and what role I should or could play in it, queries which, since the curtain was up and I on the stage, seemed fairly belated.
The Flood's Arrival
No one knew how high the flood would rise. By breakfast time it had still not entered our neighborhood. We stood on the gallery and watched and waited. Then up the gutter of Percy Street we saw it gliding, like a wavering brown snake. It was swift and it made toward the river.
Father looked somberly over the drowning town. I think he was realizing it was the last fight he would make for his people. He was sixty-seven and though unravaged by age he was tired. But he only said: "Guess you'd better go while you can. I'll be along." I waded to relief headquarters.
Our kindly old Mayor had appointed me chairman of the Flood Relief Committee and the local Red Cross. I found myself charged with the rescuing, housing, and feeding of sixty thousand human beings and thirty thousand head of stock. To assist me in the task I had a fine committee and Father's blessing, but no money, no boats, no tents, no food. That first morning when the water reached Greenville we of the committee traipsed through the mounting flood to the poker-rooms of the Knights of Columbus, hung out a sign labeled "Relief Headquarters," installed a telephone, and called on the Lord.
The Relief Committee
Our first acts, though in defiance of all law, were effective: we seized and manned all privately owned motor boats, skiffs, pleasure craft, wagons, and trucks... we confiscated all stocks of food and feed stuff in the local stores... However, for the indefinite future our need of money, tents, and motor boats was desperate. We sent out a nation-wide appeal. The response was immediate and on a grand scale...
Perhaps these early accomplishments of ours sound routine and inevitable, but in fact they taxed our ingenuity, our strength, and our judgment. At headquarters we slept three or four hours a night and, when not sleeping, lived in bedlam. It fell to my lot as chairman to make hundreds of decisions each day and the impossibility of investigation or second thought made every decision a snap judgment. Of necessity I became a dictator, and because the Red Cross controlled the food supplies and transportation I could enforce my orders. The responsibility didn't daunt me, but the consciousness that my judgments were often wrong was a continuing nightmare. If I had to be a despot I was very anxious to be a beneficent one.
Evacuation
Our problem was essentially a choice between mass feeding and evacuation. For the whites we chose evacuation. I issued an appeal very much in the nature of a command, I am afraid, for the old, the women, and the children to leave town and proceed by boat to Vicksburg.
What should we do with the Negroes: evacuate them in the same manner or feed them from centralized kitchens as the Belgians had been fed [in World War I]? There were seventy-five hundred of them. It was raining and unseasonably cold. They were clammy and hungry, finding shelter anywhere, sleeping on any floor, piled pell-mell in oil mills or squatting miserably on the windy levee. The levee itself was the only dry spot where they could be assembled or where tents by way of shelter could be set up for them. In spite of our repeated and frantic efforts we had been unable to procure a single tent. We feared disease and epidemics. Obviously for them, too, evacuation was the only solution. Therefore the Red Cross prepared them a camp in Vicksburg and procured two large steamers with barges. At last the innumerable details for their exodus were arranged and the steamers, belching black smoke, waited for them restlessly at the concrete wharf.
It was at this juncture that the Negroes announced they did not wish to leave and a group of planters, angry and mouthing, said they should not and could not leave. I was bursting with fury when Father overtook me on the levee. I explained the situation and he agreed I should not, of course, be intimidated by what the planters had said, but he suggested that if we depopulated the Delta of its labor, we should be doing it a grave disservice. I insisted that I would not be bullied by a few blockhead planters into doing something I knew to be wrong -- they were thinking of their pocketbooks; I of the Negroes' welfare. Father intimated it was a heavy decision, one I should not make alone. He suggested that I call into consultation the heads of all of my committees. I said they had been consulted and were of one mind: as we couldn't provide an adequate camp for the Negroes, we must evacuate them. Father urged that in fairness to everyone I should recanvass the situation and abide by the decision of my committee... At the meeting of the committeemen I was astounded and horrified when each and every one of them gave it as his considered judgment that the Negroes should remain and that we could provide for their needs where they were. I argued for two hours but could not budge them. At the end of the conference, weak, voiceless and on the verge of collapse, I told the outraged captains that their steamers must return empty.
After Father's death I discovered that between the time of our conversation and the committee meeting he had seen each committeeman separately and had persuaded him that it was best not to send the Negroes to Vicksburg. He knew that the dispersal of our labor was a longer evil to the Delta than a flood.
Deterioriating Relations Between the Races
... The Negro press of the North, led by the Chicago Defender, started an eight weeks' campaign of vilification directed at me... I had to take lightly their accusations that I had dumped the town's sewage into the Negro residential section while the white folks were playing golf at the Country Club, and they were easy to take lightly because the golf-links at the moment were still four feet under water and the town sewerage system never ceased to function. I was even rather thrilled when the Chicago Defender climaxed an eloquent editorial by observing that until the South rid itself of its William Alexander Percys it would be no fit place for a Negro to live. But I ought to have been... pained... by these libels, because the Negroes at home read their Northern newspapers trustingly and believed them far more piously than the evidence before their own eyes.
I feel sure that the most painful incident of the flood would not have occurred had it not been for the embittering influence of the Chicago Defender. It was a general rule of the Red Cross that recipients of its bounty should unload it gratis. This meant in our instance that meal, flour, meat, sugar, and tobacco, ninety-five percent of which went to the Negroes, must be unloaded by them without pay. When the water began to fall, the Negroes in the levee camp, where they were housed and fed under sanitary conditions, began to steal back to their soggy, muck-filled homes in the town. They always chose the hour of a boat's arrival for their sentimental journey rather than meal time. It became increasingly difficult to collect an unloading crew. If there was no such crew waiting, the steamer would immediately proceed with its sacred cargo to some more interested port. For that reason, we had already lost one boat-load of provisions and our stocks were running low. Mr. Davis, in charge of the wharf, grew daily more frantic. At last he asked my permission to get the police to round up a gang of laborers to unload the next boat. I refused, because that meant forcing labor to work and the Northern press would surely accuse the Red Cross of peonage. [Ultimately] I gave up. The police were sent into the Negro section to comb from the idlers the required number of workers. Within two hours, the worst had happened: a Negro refused to come with the officer, the officer killed him.
The next day my trusted Negro informant told me the Negroes had worked themselves into a state of wild excitement and resentment. He feared an uprising.
Keeping the Peace
Keeping the peace under these circumstances was my responsibility. I told my informant I would call a meeting of the Negroes for that night and speak to them in one of their churches. He vehemently opposed this course, saying the Negroes were all armed and all of them blamed me for the killing. Nevertheless I called the meeting...
I knew there was no chance here to appeal to reason. Retreat was out of the question. Attack was imperative. Unapplauded I mounted the pulpit and spoke slowly and bitterly:
A good Negro has been killed by a white policeman. Every white man in town regrets this from his heart and is ashamed. The policeman is in jail and will be tried. I look into your faces and see anger and hatred. You think I am the murderer. The murderer should be punished. I will tell you who he is... For months we Delta people have been suffering together, black and white alike. God did not distinguish between us. He struck us all to our knees. He spared no one... For four months I have struggled and worried and done without sleep in order to help you Negroes. Every white man in this town has done the same thing. We served you with our money and our brains and our strength and, for all that we did, no one of us received one penny. We white people could have left you to shift for yourselves. Instead we stayed with you and worked for you, day and night. During all this time you Negroes did nothing, nothing for yourselves or for us. You were asked to do only on thing, a little thing. The Red Cross asked you to unload the food it was giving you, the food without which you would have starved. And you refused. Because of your sinful, shameful laziness, because you refused to work in your own behalf unless you were paid, one of your race has been killed. You sit before me sour and full of hatred as if you had a right to blame anybody or to judge anybody. You think you want avenging justice, but you don't; that is the last thing in the world you want. I am not the murderer. Mr. Davis is not the murderer. That foolish young policeman is not the murderer. The murderer is you!
Percy's View of Race Relations
To live habitually as a superior among inferiors, be the superiority intellectual or economic, is a temptation to dishonesty and hubris, inevitably deteriorating. To live among a people whom, because of their needs, one must in common decency protect and defend is a sore burden in a world where one's own troubles are about all any life can shoulder... Yet such living is the fate of the white man in the South. He deserves all the sympathy and patience he doesn't get. Poor as his result have been they are better than any wise realist could have anticipated.
It is said that race relations in the South are improving because lynching has declined to the vanishing-point and outbursts of violence against the Negro are almost unknown. It should be noted, however, that the improvement, if improvement there is, is due solely to the white man.
The Delta problem is how all these folks -- aristocrats gone to seed, poor whites on the make, Negroes convinced mere living is good, aliens of all sorts that blend or curdle -- can dwell together in peace if not in brotherhood and live where, first and last, the soil is the only means of livelihood. Most of our American towns, all of our cities, have their unsolved problem of assimilation. But the South's is infinitely more difficult of solution. The attempt to work out any sort of one, much less a just one, as a daily living problem, diverts the energies and abilities of our best citizenship from more productive fields. A certain patience might well be extended to the South, if not in justice, in courtesy.
Percy, William Alexander. Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son. 1941. Reprint. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998.
African-American bear hunter and sportsman Holt Collier is buried in Greenville. Collier was the guide for President Theodore Roosevelt on a bear hunt and was instrumental in the birth of the teddy bear legend.
Holt Collier (1848 - 1936) was a noted African-American bear hunter and sportsman who contributed to popular culture by helping to create the Teddy Bear phenomenon.
Born about 1846 as a slave in Mississippi, he joined the Confederate military during the U.S. Civil War, serving with Company T of the Ninth Texas Cavalry in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. At the Battle of Shiloh he witnessed the death of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston. Collier worked as a cowboy in Texas and returned to Mississippi to became a noted bear hunter, killing over 3,000 bears during his lifetime. He served as President Theodore Roosevelt's tracker during the President's famous Mississippi bear hunt of 1902. On that hunt, Roosevelt refused to shoot a wounded bear that Collier had rounded up for him — thus giving rise to the "Teddy Bear" craze. Collier served again as Roosevelt's tracker during a Louisiana bear hunt of 1907. Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi is named in Collier's honor. He died in 1936 and is buried in Greenville, Mississippi.
Jo Carr (1926-2007), born Bettye Jo Crisler in Greenville, became one of the first women Methodist ministers and church administrators in the South Plains of Texas. She was first an English professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Bettye Jo Crisler Carr (September 29, 1926–July 7, 2007) was a preacher, a teacher, an author, a missionary, a mother of five, and a leader of the Girl Scouts of America. She was an English professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock when she proclaimed her call to pastoral ministry, and became the first woman appointed superintendent in the Northwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. She served from 1989 to 1993 as superintendent of the Pampa district and in the administrative role of dean of the bishop's cabinet.
Carr was born in Greenville, the seat of Washington County in the delta section of western Mississippi, the only child of Joseph Neal Crisler and the former Bessie Esther Gilley. She graduated from Texas Tech and worked as a professional Girl Scout in the Texas Panhandle. She then spent five years with the Methodist Mission service in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), where two of her children, Michael and Glenna, were born.
Leon "Pee Wee" Whittaker (1906-1993), an African American trombonist born in Newellton, Louisiana, lived in Greenville early in his career.
Leon "Pee Wee" Whittaker (1906–July 22, 1993) was an African American musician from the Mississippi River delta country of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas who was particularly known as a trombonist of jazz, blues, and rock music. From 1919 until his death, Whittaker performed with minstrel shows, carnival bands, swing orchestras, and rhythm-and-blues groups. He played alongside Louis Armstrong, Louis Jordan, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Born in Newellton in northern Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana, he was the only child of Tom and Kizzie Whittaker. His parents separated, and Kizzie, herself a talented musician, took Pee Wee on a musical tour until he could enter school. While he was in elementary school, Pee Wee lived with his maternal grandfather, who played the violin. He also studied under a Professor Smith from Alcorn State University (then Alcorn State College) near Lorman, Mississippi. He learned how to read music and to master the clarinet, guitar, string bass, and mandolin, as well as the trombone.
From 1917 to 1918, the Whittakers moved north to Lake Village in southeatern Arkansas. His mother left her musical career wen she was called to the Missionary Baptist ministry. After he graduated from high school, Whittaker joined the family band as the mandolin player. A friend and school mate, Louis Jordan, in time became a successful saxophone player, singer, songwriter, and band leader.
The Whittakers moved thereafter to Greenville, the seat of Washington County in western Mississippi. He played string bass in a band led by trombonist Tullus Washington. About 1925, the Washington family moved to Chicago, and the band dissolved. In 1927, Whittaker joined the Harry Walker band and was away from home for some eight years. In 1935, Whittaker left the Walker band and hitchhiked to Monroe, the seat of Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana. There he and Jordan joined F.S. Wolcott's Rabbit Foot Minstrels and toured along the Mississippi River from 1935 to 1950.
In the early 1950s, as a result of volatility in the music industry, Whittaker settled in El Dorado in southern Arkansas. There he formed a band that played small circuits. In 1954, Whittaker and his whole band moved to Ferriday in Concordia Parish. From 1955 to 1963, Whittaker played with Doc Morris and his band, who were associated with a small circus based in Michigan. They traveled into Canada and Great Britain. Whittaker retired from the circuit in 1963 and spent his last years in Ferriday, a majority African American community, where he performed with the Natchez blues band, Hezekiah and the Houserockers. He also played on a Ferriday radio station and at the club known as Haney's Big House.
In 1982, Whittaker was inducted into the Hall of Master Folk Artists at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. In 1990, he received the first "Delta Folklife Festival Living Tradition Award", an honor given to a resident who has contributed to the cultural heritage of the Louisiana Delta region. In March 2002, Whittaker was posthumously inducted, along with the Ferriday cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart, and Mickey Gilley, as the first entries in the Delta Music Museum in the downtown historic district of Ferriday. Whittaker was married and had one son. Whittaker donated a trombone displayed on a wall in the museum.
Jerry Rice, San Francisco 49ers star, was raised and currently resides in southern Greenville.
Jerry Lee Rice (born October 13, 1962 in Crawford, Mississippi) is a former football wide receiver in the NFL. Rice is widely regarded as the greatest wide receiver ever and one of the greatest players in NFL history, consistently showing exceptional performance and strong work ethic on and off of the field. In addition to being the all-time leader in every major statistical category for wide receivers, Rice was selected to the Pro Bowl 13 times (1986–1996, 1998, 2002) and named All-Pro 10 times in his 20 NFL seasons. He won three Super Bowl rings as a member of the San Francisco 49ers, (1985–2000), an AFC Championship with the Oakland Raiders (2001–2004), and a division championship with the Seattle Seahawks (2004).
Nelson Street
The second historic marker designated by the Mississippi Blues Commission on the Mississippi Blues Trail was placed in from of the Second Whispers Restaurant on Nelson Street in Greenville, a stop on the chitlin' circuit in the early days of the blues. The marker commemorates the importance of this site in the history of the development of the blues in Mississippi.
Nelson Street was a historic strip of blues clubs that drew crowds in the 1940s and 1950s to the flourishing club scene to hear Delta blues, big band jump blues and jazz and where record companies looked for talent. It was the equivalent of Beale Street in mid-1900s Memphis.
The Mississippi Blues Trail, created by the Mississippi Blues Commission, is a project to place interpretive markers at the most notable historical sites related to the growth of the blues throughout the state of Mississippi. The trail extends from the border of Louisiana in southern Mississippi and winds its way to Memphis, Tennessee.
Belmont PlantationHighway 1 South, Wayside
One of the few antebellum homes in the Mississippi Delta to escape burning by Union forces during the Civil War, Belmont was built circa 1857 by W.W. Worthington. In 1946, Mississippi Governor Dennis Murphree founded Belmont Hunting Lodge; today the property is a private residence.
Mount Holly Plantation
Mount Holly RiverHighway 1 South, at Lake Washington
In the town of Foote is a magnificent mansion once owned by the family of Shelby Foote, the noted Civil War historian. Mount Holly, built of slave-made brick with 14-foot ceilings and 2-foot-thick walls, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house, one of the finest examples of Italianate architecture in the State, is now a private residence.
Linden PlantationLinden-on-the-lake B&B on Lake Washington Road
Built in the early 1900’s and now operated as a bed and breakfast, this 20-room mansion is a stunning example of turn-of-the-century Colonial Revival architecture. It sits on what is believed to be the site of the first house built in the territory and is operated by descendants of the original owners.
Old Highway 61
The Original Blues Highway
When Delta Bluesmen took Highway 61 to the industrial North to seek work, they also took their music. Today, the music born in the Delta is revered worldwide and recognized as the root music for jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and hip hop. As a fitting tribute to early Delta Bluesmen such as Robert Johnson, Son Thomas and Muddy Waters, as well as their contemporaries – B.B King, Little Richard and others, the Delta Blues Festival is held in Washington County each September. This, along with the Highway 61 Blues Festival in Leland each June, attracts music fans from all over the world.
First National Bank Building 302 Main StreetThis Neoclassical Revival building was built in 1903 by the first federally chartered bank in Washington County. First National’s founding president, James E. Negus, selected the building’s marble and stained-glass windows from Italy. Today, the restored building houses the Greenville Municipal Court.
St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church 412 Main Street, Phone: 662-335-5251Open: Mass Saturday, 5:30 p.m.; Sunday, 8:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., and 5:30 p.m.
This fine Neo-Gothic Church was erected in 1907 and has a sister church in Haarlem, Holland. The church was designed and financed by Father P. J. Korstenbroek, a Dutch nobleman who was the parish priest for 33 years. Father Korstenbroek’s charity was memorialized in Lanterns on the Levee, the Memoirs of William Alexander Percy. St. Joseph’s stained-glass windows are from the Munich studio of Emil Frei.
Hebrew Union Temple, Goldstein Nelken Solomon,Century of History Museum,504 Main Street,Phone: 662-332-4153
Open: Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – Noon
Greenville’s Jewish history dates to 1867 and includes the city’s first elected mayor, Leopold Wilzinski. An earlier structure was built on this site and dedicated in 1880. The current temple was erected in 1906 and boasts exquisite stained-glass windows. Housed within its walls is the Century of History Museum detailing the contributions and culture of Greenville’s early Jewish residents.
Washington County Courthouse & Arboretum,Corner Washington Avenue and Edison StreetThe original courthouse burned by Union troops during the Civil War was replaced in 1890 with a structure comprised primarily of Illinois brownstone. Its original planners were avid conservationists and landscaped the grounds with a variety of trees indigenous to the area, creating the Courthouse Arboretum. The confederate monument located in the Arboretum is most noteworthy. It, like many of its kind in Mississippi, faces south.
Mt. Horeb M. B. Church,538 Nelson Street,Open: Sunday Services, 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
Holt Collier Historic Marker,Live Oak Cemetery,How The Teddy Bear Got Its NameIn 1903, noted outdoorsman and confederate scout Holt Collier headed up a bear hunting expedition for President Theodore Roosevelt. The night before the Mississippi Delta bear hunt, Collier, other hunters and President Roosevelt sat around a campfire telling stories. It was then that Collier promised to capture a bear for the President. The next morning, Collier did capture a bear. When the President was alerted, he had so much sympathy for the bear he could not shoot it. Later a political cartoonist popularized the event, and a toy maker named his stuffed toys “Teddy Bears,” a title now famous worldwide. Holt Collier, still known in the Mississippi Delta as the greatest bear hunter of all time, is buried in historic Live Oak Cemetery.
Greenville’s Historic Cemeteries
Jewish Cemetery, 1000 south Main Street
Greenville Cemetery, South Main at Washington
Live Oak Cemetery, south Main at Crescent Street
Chinese Cemetery, 116 Crescent St.These final resting places tell volumes about the men and women who were Greenville’s early residents: bankers and business people, politicians and former slaves, writers and teachers, community and religious leaders, and people from every walk of life.
Cotton Row,200 Block of Main Street
The classical architecture of the late 19th century lives on here, long after Delta cotton fortunes were made and lost. Today Cotton Row is home to various law offices, accounting firms and merchants.
Old Offices of the Delta Democrat Times,Corner of Main and Walnut Street
This historic structure, built in 1881, was an inspired setting for Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Hodding Carter, Jr., who penned editorials advocating racial and religious tolerance.
Famous Greenvillians
Writers | Actors/Actresses | Musicians | Artists | Athletes | Other Famous Greenvillians
By Sherry Stephenson
The same great state that gave us bottled Coca-Cola, Barq's Root Bear, Archie Manning, Jimmy Buffet, Elvis Presley, Kermit the Frog and the Teddy Bear also gave birth to the down-home blues music of the Delta through such musical artists as B. B. King, Ike and Tina Turner, Little Richard, Muddy Waters, Son Thomas, Skeeter Provis, Lil' Dave Thompson, Honey Boy Edwards and Robert Johnson, just to name a few.
Home of King Cotton, Mississippi is a lyrical land linked to Mark Twain's picturesque account of the mighty Mississippi River. At every bend on its delta river banks you'll find so much to explore, including world class dockside gambling, Indian mounds, museums, historic plantations and buildings, antique shops and an abundance of historical sights to view in the Greenville area and along our highways leading into the city.
Other well-known residents from Greenville are the world's foremost polar bear photographer Dan Guravich; the founder of The Supremes, singer Mary Wilson; country singer Steve Azar; and many, many more.
The Greenville area is a haven for writers, artists, blues singers and blues composers. Its citizens honor talent and exalt the work of all artists. The lifestyle in the area is conducive to nourishing talents of all kinds, and the scenery of our Delta city and its countrysides adds beauty to their work whether it is inspired by the golden fields of wheat, the snow white of a cotton patch, the rolling blue of the mighty river, or the busy city alive with color. No wonder talent abounds in our city!
Mississippi River Levee,Main and Central Streets
Longer and taller than the Great Wall of China, the levee stands as testimony to the Delta’s long-fought battle with the mighty Mississippi. In April 1927, the levee broke just north of Greenville and flooded hundreds of thousands of rich Delta farmland acres. This led to the construction of the present day levee system that has since contained the river’s raging waters. Walk atop this engineering marvel on Greenville’s downtown waterfront.
Greenville’s Waterfront at Lake Ferguson,Main or Central Streets
Just over the levee is the beautiful Lake Ferguson, home to two of Greenville’s Casinos and the center of many community and holiday celebrations. Lake Ferguson is also a fisherman’s paradise, hosting numerous regional and national tournaments.
Old Number 1 Firehouse Museum, 230 Main StreetPhone: 662-378-1554, city Engineering, Open: By Appointment Only
Take a journey into fire-fighting history at this vintage fire station (circa 1923). From antique fire trucks to hands-on interactive exhibits, this meticulously restored firehouse leaves visitors with a new appreciation for courageous firefighters, past and present.
Wetherbee House,503 Washington Avenue,Phone: 662-332-2246
Open: Monday – Friday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.; Sunday, 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this mid-19th century house is reminiscent of the era of horseless carriages and Classic Revival cottages. Today, the Wetherbee House is used for occasions such as wedding receptions and special events. Housed at the Wetherbee House are the offices of Greater Greenville Housing and Mainstreet Greenville.
*History of Greenville
By: Louise Eskrigge Crump
Greenville, located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, is a town of spirit that has survived fire, fever and floods.
It is the third in the State to bear the name. The first, located down near Natchez, died aborning right after the American Revolution. The second is the parent city to the present one. It was named by its founders for General Nathaniel Green, beloved friend of George Washington, for whom the county was named. This second city was located three miles from the present site, where today stands Greenville’s Industrial fill.
Sky Shot Of Port The second town was a thriving hamlet in the days before the Civil War. It formed the business and cultural center for the large cotton plantations that surrounded it. The town was destroyed during the siege of Vicksburg when troops from a Yankee gunboat landed, and when fired upon, burned every building. The inhabitants took refuge in plantation homes of the area. When the war was over, ragged, crippled veterans of Mississippi regiments found their homes gone and their families scattered.
For a time these men rested, but not for long. They had been defeated in battle but not in spirit. They met in twos and threes and finally en-mass and decided to build again. The place chosen was the highest point on the Mississippi River between the towns of Vicksburg and Memphis. It belonged to the Roach and Blanton families; the major part of the area selected was on the property owned by Mrs. Harriet Blanton Theobald. She welcomed the idea of a new Greenville and gave land for schools and churches and public buildings, earning the name of the “Mother of Greenville”.
Major Richard O’Hea, who planned the fortifications at Vicksburg that held Grant’s troops in check for so long, was hired to lay out the new town. But hardly had homes been erected, and the new city government set up before tragedy struck again. The era of Reconstruction descended and the little town was paralyzed by the rule of the Carpet Bag. Hard on the heels of this tragedy came another and more deadly one.
Late in August of 1877, yellow fever in its most deadly form broke out in Greenville. Business was paralyzed. Not a family escaped tragedy, but the spirit of the town prevailed; and in 1886, the city petitioned and received its first charter. Two years later the first step toward economic entrenchment came when a group of cotton factors, buyers, merchants and planters, organized the cotton exchange.
In 1890, Greenville suffered its first flood. One half of the city was covered and the fight with Old Man River had begun. This ended four decades later when the Federal Government rescued the river towns and flood control was established.
Years passed and the town grew slowly, but gradually mud-covered streets and plank sidewalks began to disappear. The old business district, demolished by the caving banks of the Mississippi River, was replaced by paved streets lined with smart shops. New churches, schools, parks, theaters, and hospitals came into being.
Greenville MuseumThen, once again, the prosperity and growth were halted as the river rose and broke through its levee, covering the town for a three-month period. This was in 1927, but once again the city rose this time from flood waters that had covered every inch of ground.
Flood Of 1927
Once again, the city met disaster without faltering. Today it is the Mississippi River’s largest river port. Agriculture has thrived and industry has been brought in. It boasts not only economic but cultural advantages with its fine schools, its Art Center and libraries, its outstanding newspaper, its Little Theater, Choral Society and Symphony League.
War MemorialThe City of Greenville has grown. Today it covers eight square miles, a busy prosperous place and yet in many ways it has not changed. It is the same city, actuated by the spirit of the men who built it, those war weary men who, returning from the Civil War, found their homes in ashes, but built again.
* This history article was written circa 1952 and was acquired from the Greenville History Museum.
Famous Greenvillians
By Sherry Stephenson
The same great state that gave us bottled Coca-Cola, Barq's Root Bear, Archie Manning, Jimmy Buffet, Elvis Presley, Kermit the Frog and the Teddy Bear also gave birth to the down-home blues music of the Delta through such musical artists as B. B. King, Ike and Tina Turner, Little Richard, Muddy Waters, Son Thomas, Skeeter Provis, Lil' Dave Thompson, Honey Boy Edwards and Robert Johnson, just to name a few.
Home of King Cotton, Mississippi is a lyrical land linked to Mark Twain's picturesque account of the mighty Mississippi River. At every bend on its delta river banks you'll find so much to explore, including world class dockside gambling, Indian mounds, museums, historic plantations and buildings, antique shops and an abundance of historical sights to view in the Greenville area and along our highways leading into the city.
Other well-known residents from Greenville are the world's foremost polar bear photographer Dan Guravich; the founder of The Supremes, singer Mary Wilson; country singer Steve Azar; and many, many more.
The Greenville area is a haven for writers, artists, blues singers and blues composers. Its citizens honor talent and exalt the work of all artists. The lifestyle in the area is conducive to nourishing talents of all kinds, and the scenery of our Delta city and its countrysides adds beauty to their work whether it is inspired by the golden fields of wheat, the snow white of a cotton patch, the rolling blue of the mighty river, or the busy city alive with color. No wonder talent abounds in our city!
Highway 61 Blues Murals Crossroads of Highways 82 and 81,
Leland, MS 38767, Located 9Miles East, 662-686-2687, The Leland Blues Project has created several murals in downtown Leland chronicling the work of such legendary artists as Son Thomas, Willie Foster, Little Milton, Jimmy Reed and Eddie Cusic. Many of these greats started in Leland and traveled their journey to stardom.
Ruins of the St. John's Episcopal Church Lake Washington Road, Greenville, MS 38701,
Located 1 Mile South of Glen Allan, St. John's was built around 1830 and stood as one of the first churches in the region. After the Civil War, when parts of the church was used to make mini balls, the building fell into ruin. Today the beautiful stonework can be visited and you may recognize the sight as one of the most photographed places in Mississippi.
Winterville Indian Mounds Highway 1 North, Greenville, MS 38703, 662-334-4684,
Among North America's most significant pre-Columbian archeological sites, this was the site built by a Native American civilization that thrived from about A.D. 1000 to 1450 for sacred structures and ceremonies. It is an official state historic site listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is located six miles north of the intersection of Highways 82 and 1.
Winterville Mounds Historic Site 2415 Highway 1 North, Greenville, MS 38703, 601-334-4684, Believed to be the ceremonial site of predecessors of the Choctow and Chickasaw. There is a museum and picnic areas.
Birthplace of Kermit the Frog South Deer Creek Drive, East at Highway 82, Leland, MS 38756, Located Along Deer Creek, 662-686-2687, This exhibit commemorates Jim Henson, the creator of the Sesame Street characters and his delightful Muppets. Henson spent much of his childhood playing along the banks of Deer Creek which inspired him to create the character, Kermit the Frog. A gift shop is available and locals suggest you bring a bag lunch and relax in the park that surrounds the exhibit.
