Articles by Rufus Ward
Ask Rufus: An arrowhead’s story
Not long after I started writing my weekly column, I realized the late Uncle Bunky loved talking about local history.
Ask Rufus: 486 years of Black history in Columbus
Few people seem to realize the very important role of African Americans in the exploration and settlement of the Tombigbee River Valley. I have told this story before, but it is a story that needs repeating.
Ask Rufus: The first railroad west of the Appalachian Mountains
One of the most significant items in the Billups Garth Archives at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library is the court papers from an early 1840s lawsuit involving the “Tuscumbia, Courtland & Decatur Rail Road Company.”
Ask Rufus: Memories of the gullies at Allison’s Wells
Schools are beginning to get out, and summer is just around the corner.
Ask Rufus: Capt. Simon’s ride of May 1736
In the 1730s, conflict in Europe between England and France spread to the Tombigbee River Valley between the Choctaw-French alliance and the Chickasaw-English alliance.
Ask Rufus: Remember
Often the photos are faded and bent, and though fewer and fewer remain who remember the names, their sacrifice is still ours to honor.
Ask Rufus: Drinks and stories on a southern porch
It’s almost summer, and in the South that means sitting on a porch visiting with friends and relatives.
Ask Rufus: ‘Like a besom of destruction’
While watching the weather and storm reports Wednesday night, a tornado warning for Natchez and a tornado being reported just south of Natchez caught my attention.
Ask Rufus: Mint juleps: A southern tradition
It’s time for the Kentucky Derby, and it is time to again ponder over that traditional southern libation – the mint julep.
Ask Rufus: A story of floods and steamboats
The Tombigbee floods of 1847 and 1851 were devastating, but for two steamboats they could have been even more disastrous.
Ask Rufus: A 317-year-old Tombigbee River image
There are very few pre-1800 images of the Tombigbee River valley, or for that matter, what are now the inland parts of east Mississippi or west Alabama.
Ask Rufus: Lessons from a muckraker’s story
There is so much bitterness over politics in our country that an expanded version of a column I wrote five years ago is warranted.
Ask Rufus: Columbus, June 1819
The founding of Columbus involved a series of events stretching from 1810 to 1819.
Ask Rufus: The missing gold of the steamboat Orline St. John
In the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Gordon Lightfoot told of the wrecks on Lake Superior “When the skies of November turn gloomy.” The same can be said of March on the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers of Mobile.
Ask Rufus: A Mezuzah by an Old Doorway
When Karen and I bought the Ole Homestead 13 years ago, we knew the old home would have some surprises and reveal some mysteries.
Ask Rufus: Lt. Col. Alva Temple an American hero
On March 4, The Commercial Dispatch reported that the Columbus-Lowndes Airport had received a $15,000 America250 Legacy grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council to help develop a museum at the airport.
Ask Rufus: Remembering heroines
Three things have converged, leading me to expand and revise a column I wrote three years ago on the role of women during World War II.
Ask Rufus: Our endangered architectural heritage
Reading a news account last week about some historic buildings at The W possibly being torn down brought to mind the many landmarks and irreplaceable buildings that over the years have been demolished in Columbus.
Ask Rufus: Remnants of the age of dinosaurs
Around the Golden Triangle, you see many flowers, plants and trees whose ancestors lived 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period.
Ask Rufus: Gen BH Grierson, from horse soldiers to the Buffalo Soldiers
One of the most famous cavalry exploits of the Civil War was a Union cavalry raid through Mississippi in 1863. The raid has been the subject of several books and even a John Wayne movie, “The Horse Soldiers.”
