Though many of the homes in Burns Bottom have been demolished to make way for future development, the legacy of the neighborhood near downtown is far from gone.
Over the next two weekends, the former Burns Bottom neighborhood will host two events drawing on the neighborhood’s history, each at Munson and Brothers Trading Post.
LaNise Frison, Katrina Little, Lucretia Jackson and Robena Moody are organizing the first Burns Bottom Reunion this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the trading post. Frison said the reunion will keep the history of the neighborhood alive, as former residents are invited to reconnect where it once stood.
“We wanted to bring people originally from the Bottom together for the chance to socialize, eat, and just reminisce about the memories they have of Burns Bottom, especially since it’s no longer there,” Frison said. “… There are a lot of memories from everybody that I meet down in the Bottom. The history will live on forever as long as they’re here.”
This year’s reunion will include a history session with the older generation of Burns Bottom, Frison said, along with food vendors who are former Burns Bottom residents. She said there will also be bounce houses for kids, a DJ and games.
Frison said she did not grow up in the Bottom, but her husband Anthony did. She said the reunion will help both of them to connect with former residents, with the hope of making it a regular event.
Little, who lived in Burns Bottom starting when she was born in 1977 until she graduated high school, said she is looking forward to the reunion as a way to continue sharing memories with old friends, including “dire” memories of the floods, along with good memories of playing with her friends on the playground and of her aunt’s business there.
“I lived down there all my life,” Little said. “We do have a little history down there and memories. Just getting everybody back together to think about old times and good times, it will be something positive to bring the community back together.”
Jackson, who lived in Burns Bottom from 1966 until 2021, said she remembers the neighborhood fondly because of the “hard working people,” and the reunion will give an opportunity to see those residents again.
“They were beautiful and nice churchgoing people,” Jackson said. “Hard workers. And they all were about having something. … There are a lot of people I haven’t seen in a long time.”
Burns Bottom developed into an area for mill worker housing by the late 19th century, and the neighborhood was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1980.
After the neighborhood fell into blight, with many of the houses dilapidated and other lots vacant, the Columbus Redevelopment Authority began acquiring the lots in 2017 to make room for a redevelopment project.
After a 2019 historic survey of the properties in the neighborhood, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History declined to bestow landmark status to any of the neighborhood’s structures, making all those CRA had acquired legally eligible for demolition.
Oktoberfest
Ryan Munson, creative director for the trading post, said the Columbus Arts Council’s quarterly Burns Bottom Arts Festival will be folded into the trading post’s Oktoberfest, which will include a beer run, brats, live music and more Oct. 6-7. He said the Burns Bottom Arts Festival will start on Oct. 7 at 11 a.m., while other activities continue around it.
Munson said the arts festival was included in the spirit of “welcoming everyone to the table” and remembering the history of the area.
Salem Gibson, executive director for CAC, said the festival’s name was changed from “3rd Saturday” in 2021 to pay homage to the history of the old neighborhood. He said the art festival also features a selective roster of 20 vendors, which reflects Burns Bottom’s history of businesses and artists that created handcrafted goods.
“Burns Bottom started as a way to pay homage to that part of town,” Gibson said. “It was very hardworking, blue collar. There was a tannery and some handcrafted sculpture pieces. All these things were down there, and … it had a rich history in that area. And when they started remodeling it and redoing it, I didn’t want to lose that, basically. I didn’t want to lose the fact that there were a lot of people who lived their whole life and generationally were there.”
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