Bear
Creek
Bear
Creek is still a community, but no longer has an operating store or P.
O. The only things left are a few scattered houses and the Bear Creek
Methodist Church and cemetery (and several old family cemeteries no longer
in use). Many of the family names there were Ford, Ervin, Stackhouse,
Lott, Carmichael, Pickett, Funchess, Brock, Burnett, Fisher, Lewis, and
others. It is located about 5 miles from Utica between Utica
and Crystal Springs on MS Highway 27. The
next
community "down the road" between Bear Creek and Crystal Springs was Hollingsworth,
then Dabney, then Gallatin, and on to Crystal Springs. All of these
places are ghost villages now, and only cemeteries and a few houses remain
in each community. Crystal Springs itself is not where it once
started. The old town and the old cemetery (still in limited use)
are located where the springs were. When the railroad came through,
the town's residents gradually moved businesses then houses to the railroad
track about 2 miles away, and left the old site behind. Same thing
happened at Utica, which moved to the railroad track in the 1880-1890s
from about a half mile to the west. This happened all over the South
as rail lines were built, then happened all over again as rail roads declined
as major revenue sources, and paved highways and interstates were constructed.
If you look at old Mississippi maps after the Civil War and up into the
1920s, the names on them are the railroad towns, even if there were
other
incorporated towns not on railroads. After good highways were built,
the railroad towns in many cases have disappeared unless they were also
on major highways. Bear Creek was miles from the railroad,
and only on what became a state highway that wasn't even paved until I
was grown. Even when I was a child, I only remember Mr. Carmichael's
store, and mail was already delivered from Utica.
Mary
Collins Landin
Utica,
Hinds County, MS
LANDINMC@aol.com