While most burial mounds in Mississippi are dated to around 100 B.C. to 400 B.C. (the Middle Woodland period), the six burial mounds at Boyd Site date to around 800 to 1100 A.D. (the Late Woodland and Early Mississippian periods).
In 1964, the National Park Service excavated some of the mounds. One of the mounds appears to be 100 feet long, but is actually 3 different mounds. Within these 3 mounds, 41 burials were found.
While few artifacts were discovered within burial sites, the pottery that was discovered possibly indicate that the mounds were created in two different phases: one within the Late Woodland period and another within the Mississippian period.
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Archaeologists tell us that there was a house here sometime around 500 A.D. and that the pottery found in the mounds was made before 700 A.D. Likely, the population was continuous over centuries with customs being handed from generation to generation, relying on field, forest, and stream for food. The simple social system was probably based on family and close relatives.
United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Location
The mounds are located approximately 6 miles from I-55 on the Natchez Trace Parkway, Madison, MS 39110
Known as the “Singing Brakeman” and “America’s Blue Yodeler”, James Charles Rodgers, better known as Jimmie Rodgers, was a pioneering country music star. He has been regarded as the Father of Country Music, combining elements from different genres, including jazz, folk music and work chants.
Born on September 8, 1987, the son of a railroad section foreman, Jimmie was attracted to music from a young age. At 13, he won an amateur talent show and soon after ran away to join a traveling medicine show. His father found him and brought Rodgers back to work on the railroad. During the early 1900s, he worked as everything from a call boy to a brakeman to a baggage master.
In 1924, he developed tuberculosis – a disease that would plague him throughout his life and lead to his death – he abandoned railroad work and devoted himself to music. He wouldn’t, however, find success until 1927 working a regular, unpaid spot on an Asheville, North Carolina, radio station.
His luck turned again, when he learned that Ralph Peer, an agent for Victor Talking Machine Company, was doing field recordings. There was a positive response to his release, and he wound up recording again for Peer, leading to the release of “Blue Yodel (T for Texas), which became his first big hit.
Rodgers would spend the next five years traveling across the nation, appearing in a movie and recording with famous stars, including the Carter Family, Bill Boyd and Louis Armstrong.
Jimmie Rodgers (1897 – 1933) is widely known as the “father of country music,” but blues was a prominent element of his music. The influence of his famous “blue yodels” can be heard in the music of Mississippi blues artists including Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, Tommy Johnson, and the Mississippi Sheiks. His many songs include the autobiographical “T.B. Blues,” which addressed the tuberculosis that eventually took his life.
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Jimmie Rodgers and The Blues Meridian native Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933) was the first major star of country music and introduced the blues to a far wider audience than any other artist of his time, black or white. He was not the first white performer to interpret the blues, but he was the most popular, establishing the blues as a foundation of country music.
More than a third of Rodgers’s recordings were blues, which he encountered as a young man while working as a railway brakeman and traveling musician. In 1927 he recorded the song “Blue Yodel” that sold over a million copies and earned Rodgers the nickname “The Blue Yodeler.” His distinctive style mixed blues, European yodeling, and African American falsetto singing traditions. Before Rodgers, several African Americans, notably Charles Anderson, had specialized in yodeling, and in 1923 blues singers Bessie Smith and Sara Martin recorded Clarence Williams’s song, “Yodeling Blues.”
Although most of Rodgers’s songs were original, some of his most popular were versions of blues classics. “Frankie and Johnnie” was an African American ballad about a murder in St. Louis in 1899, and blues artists including Jim Jackson from Hernando, Mississippi, had made earlier recordings of “In the Jailhouse Now.” Rodgers employed African American musicians in the studio, including Louis Armstrong, who, along with his pianist wife Lil, backed Rodgers on “Blue Yodel No. 9.” Other sessions featured blues guitarist Clifford Gibson and the Louisville Jug Band.
In early 1929 Rodgers toured Mississippi with a vaudeville show that included blues singer Eva Thomas. Bluesmen who claimed to have met, traveled, or performed with Rodgers included Hammie Nixon, Rubin Lacy, and Houston Stackhouse, who recalled that he and Robert Nighthawk accompanied Rodgers in a show at the Edwards Hotel in Jackson (c. 1931). Rodgers’s influence on African American musicians from Mississippi is evident in recordings by the Mississippi Sheiks, Tommy Johnson, Furry Lewis, Scott Dunbar, and Mississippi John Hurt, whose song “Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me” was based on Rodgers’s “Waiting For A Train.” Howlin’ Wolf attributed his distinctive singing style to Rodgers, explaining, “I couldn’t do no yodelin’, so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine.”
If you don’t want me mama, you sure don’t have to stall If you don’t want me mama, you sure don’t have to stall. ‘Cause I can get more women than a passenger train can haul
Daniel H. Burnham was a prominent architect during the late 1800s and early 1900s. He helped rebuild Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. As part of the City Beautiful reform, which was a movement against overpopulation and poverty, the city approved the Group Plan of 1903 to build a mall that would work as Cleveland’s main center. Daniel Burnham helped design the Group Plan for Cleveland.
In August 1903, architects Daniel H. Burnham, John M. Carrére, and Arnold W. Brunner presented Mayor Tom L. Johnson and the City of Cleveland a plan that epitomized the City Beautiful Movement in America. The Group Plan envisioned a grand landscaped mall surrounded by public buildings in the Beaux-Arts style. The plan would create a monumental civic center, influence the design of buildings throughout the city, and lay the foundation for a city planning commission. The first of its kind in the nation, the Group Plan, as built, was the most completely realized of Burnham’s city planning efforts. In its green space and architecture, the Mall remains an enduring and vital element of Cleveland’s civic culture.
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“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.”
The Belhaven Historic District is located in a hilly area of Jackson, Mississippi. The district includes Belhaven University and the Eudora Welty House. The area is distinct due to its many different architectural styles, including Queen Anne, Greek Revival and Neoclassical Revival. This is why this neighborhood is considered one of the most architecturally diverse areas in the country.
Named after the house of a Confederate veteran of the Civil War, Jones S. Hamilton, the Belhaven Neighborhood is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Jackson. The name Belhaven was given to the home in honor of Hamilton’s ancestral home in Scotland. Before that, in 1875, the area was known as Moody Estate. By the early 1900s, North State Street was considered to be one of the most fashionable places to live with its large homes.
In 1983, the neighborhood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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The Belhaven neighborhood developed north of the city as Jackson’s first suburb. Composed of more than 1,300 historic structures dating from as early as 1904, Belhaven is Mississippi’s largest historic district. The neighborhood includes a wide variety of building styles with a mixture of commercial and residential developments, as well as religious and educational institutions.
The Belhaven Historic District is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Location
Intersection of Riverside Drive and Peachtree Street, Jackson, MS
During the 1800s, the “castle look” was a popular architectural style in New Orleans. These Gothic references to the Old World were found in Carollton, Harvey, Algiers, Gretna and the Third District. The Harvey Castle was one of the most recognizable versions of this style.
Built on the Destrehan Canal in 1846, it was the home of Louise Destrehan and Captain Joseph Hale Harvey. The Destrehan Canal was owned by Nicholas Noel Destrehan.
According to historical references by a descendant, the castle was “medieval, two turreted baronial castle patterned from a faded old picture of grandfather’s and great uncle’s home in Scotland”.
Later, the Destrehan Canal became the Harvey Canal. The castle was then converted into the Jefferson Parish Courthouse (from 1874 to 1884). In 1920, it was demolished to expand the Harvey Canal when it became part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
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Built in 1844, Harvey Castle was the Gothic Revival home of Marie Louise Destrehan and her husband Joseph Hale Harvey. It served as the third courthouse of Jefferson Parish, 1874-1884. Located east side of Destrehan Avenue 450 feet north of railroad. Demolished in 1924 to enlarge Harvey Canal and Locks.
Sandusky, Ohio, was active in the Underground Railroad both before and during the Civil War. The Underground Railroad was a network of people who aiding in helping escaped enslaved people get to freedom. These people often provided food, shelter and transportation.
Ohio’s southern river boundary was over 450 miles long, creating an extremely long border between the anti-slavery State of Ohio and slave-holding areas of Virginia and Kentucky. If slaves were able to cross the Ohio River, then they could be funneled to cities like Sandusky or Cleveland, or even escape to Canada since slavery had been outlawed in Great Britain since 1833.
Many of the residents of Sandusky were anti-slavery since a good portion of the people who lived there had come from New England and often sympathized with the slaves. Ohio’s railway lines helped bring freedom-seekers to Sandusky, where they could escape aboard vessels.
Sandusky actually played a major role in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin since it was many times the final stop to freedom.
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Many homes in Sandusky and other parts of Erie County were stations on the Underground Railroad before and during the Civil War. Residents provided food, shelter, clothing and transportation to Canada. Harriet Beecher Stowe used Sandusky as the gate to freedom for the run-away slaves in her book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.
Location
Jackson Street Pier, 233 West Shoreline Drive, Sandusky, Ohio 44879
Located in Lauderdale County in the East Central Hills of Mississippi, Meridian started in 1831 after the Choctaw Indians left the land as part of the terms of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. The city got its name from a settler who believed that the word “meridian” actually meant “junction” or “zenith”.
Richard McLemore of Virginia was the first to come to area and then offered free land to others to try to get them to move the region. By 1855, railroads had linked Meridian with other areas, and, by the 1860s, there were 15 families living in the town.
Meridian played a role during the Civil War. It was the location of the Confederate arsenal, a stockade for prisoners and a military hospital, and it even was the location of the state capital for a month in 1863. In February 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman destroyed the city. The only surviving antebellum mansion in the area from before this time is Merrehope, a Greek Revival home.
For a period of time during the 1890s until 1930, Meridian was also the largest manufacturer in the state. It was known for timber and cotton production.
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Formerly Sowashee, it was chartered 1860, and throve as rail junction during the Civil War, serving in 1863 as temporary capital and as depository of the state’s official records.
Magnolia Springs, Alabama, is located on the Magnolia River in Baldwin County. The headwaters for the river comes from the many springs in the area. It was established due due a Spanish land grant in the 1800s. After the Civil War, many families and descendants of soldiers on both sides moved to the area. During the 19th Century, many Creoles from the Mobile area also came to the area as their own community started to fail.
With so many pine forests, Magnolia Springs became known for the production of turpentine. In 1865 during the Civil War, the owners actually burned down the stills to prevent them from being confiscated by the Union Army. Around the beginning of the 20th Century, chemical firms from Chicago came down and took water samples around the town. In their opinion, the springs around Magnolia Springs were deemed to be the purest in the world.
The town still boasts the only river postal delivery system in the United States, and you can find many boathouses along the banks. It also has a number of houses that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was finally incorporated in 2006.
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Settlement of this area began in the early 1700’s and was expedited by a series of Spanish land grants in the early 1800’s. During the 1819-33 time period a brick factory along the south river bank supplied brick for construction of Fort Morgan at the mouth of Mobile Bay. In 1891 the community of Magnolia Springs was established when the first subdivision was platted. The village’s name was a combination of two local assets – the ever-flowing springs and the towering canopy of magnolia trees. Nestled along the banks of the Magnolia River, the village drew residents from Alabama, Vermont, Illinois, and Missouri. Those early settlers built homes and businesses along the main transportation artery, the Magnolia River. Early businesses included turpentine, lumber, and mercantile operations. Inns and hotels were established for the growing tourist trade. Steamers, such as “The Magnolia” brought supplies and passengers to the area. Today, mail is still delivered by boat, as it has been since 1916. It is the last year-round river mail delivery in the U.S.
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For more than 100 years, the Magnolia Springs Community Association, with monthly potlucks, kept people abreast of local events. The Community Hall erected in 1894 still provides a meeting place for residents. A volunteer fire department established in 1961 serves the safety needs of the community. It was housed in a small cinder block structure behind the historic Community Hall and adjacent to Saint Paul’s Chapel (erected in 1902). Today, the Magnolia Springs Volunteer Fire Department has its own modern facility on the former grounds of the old Magnolia Springs School (the school was erected in 1927 and destroyed by fire in 1985). By the turn of the 21st century, residents of the little unincorporated village moved into a new historical phase when the Town of Magnolia Springs was incorporated in 2006. Magnolia Springs, a successful blend of natives and transplants, continue to offer the warmth of the traditional southern hospitality and the appeal of treasured historic heritage.
The history of Pueblo de San Ildefonso dates back to the 1300s when the original inhabitants moved from the Bandelier area to this location after a prolonged drought. The Pueblo is close to the Rio Grande. These Ancient Puebloans had originally come from the settlement at Mesa Verde, Colorado.
In 1598, Juan de Oñate came to the area and officially gave the Pueblo its name. Around this time, the village was moved to its present location. Later in 1610, Fray Andrés Bautista created the first permanent mission here.
But the Spanish brought troubles to the people. They required that the Pueblo communities pay tribute to them as well as convert to Catholicism. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 resulted in the Spanish being expelled from the region for a while, and the San Ildefonso people were a major part of that uprising.
The people resisted the Spanish for several more years after they came back to the area. It wasn’t until 1694 that the Spanish were able to remove the Tewa and Tano people from the mesa. Then, a drought in 1695 that weakened the colonists encouraged the Pueblos to rebel again in 1696. But the mission was reestablished, and a church was built in the village in the 1700s.
In 1821, the area was ruled by Mexico. In 1848, after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it became part of the United States. After Congress created the reservation system in 1858, a grant of over 17,000 acres of land was given to the village in 1864. It is still a federally recognized tribe.
The Pueblo is today comprised of 60,000 acres and about 750 people live there. It is made up of traditional kivas, a central plaza and a 1960s replica of a 1700s church.
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In the 1500s, migrants from the Pajarito Plateau joined their Tewa-speaking relatives at San Ildefonso. The pueblo is famous as the home of the late Maria Martinez and other makers of polished black pottery. The modern church, a replica of that of 1711, was finished in 1968.
Location
Off State Road 502 along the Rio Grande Valley, East of Los Alamos
The Carrollton Historic District is approximately two and a half square miles with buildings that date from around 1880 to 1937. The town of Carrollton began on the site of the former Macarty sugar plantation, which was originally located in Jefferson Parish. The property had been acquired by Laurent Millaudon, Samuel Kohn and John Slidell, real estate investors, as well as the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company. The land was subdivided in 1833, and the town of Carrollton was born.
The town was connected to New Orleans via the New Orleans and Carrollton Railroad, which would take passengers between the two areas two hours a day, seven days a week. Later in 1851, the Jefferson and Lake Ponchartrain Railroad was started. The ease of transportation created a real estate boom. The number of houses in the town went from 36 in 1841 to 1,470 within 10 years. People in the middle and upper classes lived in the area.
Incorporated on March 10, 1845, the town of Carrollton eventually became a city on March 17, 1859. It was even the parish seat from 1852 to 1874. It was finally annexed by City of New Orleans in 1874.
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In 1833, real estate investors commissioned surveyor Charles F. Zimpel to lay out the former Macarty sugar plantation into lots, squares, and streets that formed the village of Carrollton. Reportedly named in honor of General William Carroll, whose troops camped in the vicinity during the War of 1812, Carrollton owed its initial growth to two railway lines that converged in the community, stimulating its development as a “bedroom suburb” for New Orleans. Originally part of Jefferson Parish, Carrollton was incorporated as a town in 1845 and as a city in 1859. It was annexed to the City of New Orleans in 1874. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, the Carrollton Historic District is significant for its wealth of residential buildings, such as shotgun houses and raised bungalows, that date from the early 1840s through the 1930s.
Location
Intersection of South Claiborne Avenue and South Carrollton Avenue
Historical Markers of the World 