Slim Smith: Happy Birthday, Mississippi
On this date 200 years ago, Mississippi was admitted as the 20th state in the union with the state capital set in Natchez, David Holmes serving as our first governor and the state motto: “The State Whose Name You’re Always Going To Get Wrong On Your Spelling Test.”
Ask Rufus: The Columbus landscape of 1817
The first Anglo-American settlement in northeast Mississippi occurred at Cotton Gin Port on the Tombigbee (near present day Amory) in 1801. Following that settlement, John Pitchlynn established his residence at Plymouth Bluff, four miles north of present-day downtown Columbus in 1810.