Greenwood, Leflore County, Mississippi, 1891
Greenwood, the county seat of Leflore County, is located on the left bank of
the Yazoo River about three miles below where that river is formed by the
confluence of the Yalobusha and Tallahatchie rivers and has a population of one
thousand souls. Here also the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad has an incline
for the ready transfer of freights from steam-boats, a number of which ply daily
carrying on a lucrative business up and down the river from this point. The
growth of the town in the past six years has been almost phenomenal, it having
grown in that time from a village to about five hundred inhabitants. Beside a
large local trade there are several large wholesale establishments located at
Greenwood and a number of cotton buyers and it is a lively business point. It
has three churches, Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal, for the whites, and a
large Methodist church for the colored population, besides two public
schoolhouses one for each race, also an elegant opera-house and ample lodge
rooms for the various secret and benevolent orders. A number of manufacturing
companies have been incorporated and facilities will be supplied to handle the
immense amount of cotton shipped from this and adjacent points. Here too a
packery of beef could find the material necessary for carrying on that business,
since a large number of cattle are raised in this and adjoining counties.
South of Greenwood, on the line of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad, is
the thriving village of Rising Sun, at which place the railroad taps the Yazoo
River, and there is probably the best dirt road in the country leading from
there to the hill country on the east.
Ten miles south from Greenwood on the same railroad where it taps the river is
the town of Sidon, second in size and importance in the county which has kept
proportionate pace in improvements with the county seat, and where a number of
roads coming in from the hill country make a desirable trading point where are
ample church and school facilities and a live whole-soled people.
Going north from Greenwood ten miles is found the third town of size and
importance in the county, Shell Mound, on the right bank of the Tallahatchie
river, which is the entre-pot of supplies for a large territory embracing the
farms on the McNutt lake and Quiver river, where is raised the finest staple of
cotton in the world. McNutt, situated on a lake of the same name, was once the
county seat of old Sunflower county, and while the march of improvement has
turned aside from this once thriving inland town, it still boasts of its school
and church and is noted for the hospitality of its people.
Emmaville is a pretty village on the right bank of the Tallahatchie. Railway
facilities which are promised will cause Red Cross, Shannondale and Minter city,
three beautiful little villages on the Tallahatchie River, to develop into towns
of some size.
Sheppardtown, ten miles south from Sidon, on the right bank of the Yazoo River,
is another thriving village having the rich land of Bear creek from which to
draw its trade and still farther down the Yazoo at stated intervals can be found
large storehouses where clever merchants do a good business. Between Sidon and
Rising Sun, on the right bank of the river, is Roebuck landing, one of the best
trading points in the county, where an immense business is done Going west from
there around Roebuck lake, a cutoff of the Yazoo, are to be found several
stores, and at Itta Bena, where the line of the Georgia Pacific railroad crosses
that lake, quite a village has been built. Fort Loring, where the same railroad
crosses the Yazoo River three miles west from Greenwood, has attained
importance.
Besides Greenwood, this county has the following towns and villages: Itta Bena,
Sidon, Shell Mound, Minter city, Sunnyside, Old McNutt, Rising Sun and Red
Cross.
Back to: Mississippi Counties, Cities and Towns, 1891
Source: Biographical and Historical Memories of Mississippi, Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1891
