FORREST COUNTY
Chapter XLV, pages 720-723
Provision was made by act of the legislature
approved April 19, 1906, for the creation and organization of a new county
to be called Forrest. It was named for the distinguished Confederate cavalry
leader, General Nathan B. Forrest, and its area was made to embrace the
Second judicial district of what was then the county of Perry. It was further
provided that the city of Hattiesburg should be the seat of justice of
the new county, and that a special election should be held within the limits
of its proposed territory on the first Tuesday of May, 1907, to submit
the question to the qualified electors.
In response to a favorable vote cast on
that day, the Governor issued a proclamation calling for the organization
of Forrest County on the first Monday of January, 1908. Its organization
and establishment therefore dates from January 6, 1908. Its area embraces
what was formerly the western part of Perry County, contains thirteen townships
and 462 square miles of land surface.
The county of Forrest, as now organized,
has a population of 21,238 people. It is substantially in the form of a
parallelogram. Situated in the southeastern part of the State, it is bounded
on the north by Covington and Jones counties, on the east by Perry, south
by Stone, and west by Lamar County.
Hattiesburg, the capital of the county
of Forrest, is one of the leading and growing cities of Mississippi. It
is one of its most important railroad centers, as well as a leader in all
industrial, commercial, financial and social movements. It has been appropriately
called the Queen of the great Pine Belt of southeastern Mississippi. From
Hattiesburg as the hub, the New Orleans & Northeastern, the Gulf, Mobile
and Northern, the Mississippi Central and the Gulf and Ship Island lines
of railroad, radiate in all directions to give the city splendid transportation
and distribution facilities.
The New Orleans and North Eastern Railroad
Company, after completing its line, erected here a handsome depot and eating
house, and also a roundhouse, making it a relay station with repair shops.
A village of three or four hundred inhabitants soon sprang up in 1884 and
1885 with two or three stores, but its growth was slow though continuous.
In January, 1887, the Gulf and Ship Island
Railroad, which had been reorganized, with Captain W.H. Hardy as president,
began grading the road, the first work being done from Hattiesburg, south.
About five miles of the line was graded when the entire force was transferred
to Gulfport and north of that place, and the succeeding year the grading
reached Hattiesburg, with twenty miles of rails laid from Gulfport north
to the present town of Saucier.
Financial embarrassment of the Construction
Company caused a suspension of the work of construction in 1888. This embarrassment
was occasioned by a failure to have the lands which had been granted to
the railroad company, before the war, confirmed to the company by Secretary
Noble, who was Secretary of the Interior under the administration of President
Harrison. He held the question in abeyance until the last day of his term
of office, when he decided it adversely to the company. As soon as the
new administration was inaugurated, an application for a new hearing was
filed with the Hon. Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior under President
Cleveland’s second administration. Final decision was obtained in about
one year, favorable to the company, securing, however, only about 130,000
acres of land, all of it timbered with long leaf yellow pine.
With this as a basis of credit a contract
was made with the Bradford Construction Company, of Bradford, Pennsylvania,
to complete the road to Hattiesburg, build a pier at Gulfport three thousand
feet long into Mississippi Sound, and to equip the road with ample rolling
stock. The contract was completed in 1897 and the road was sold to the
Bradford Construction Company.
By an act of the legislature the county
was divided into two judicial districts, and Hattiesburg was made the county
seat of the second district; a neat brick structure for a courthouse was
erected on Main Street. Then the enterprising spirits who were guiding
the progress of the little city had a splendid brick school building erected
and fitted up with the best of modern school furniture and equipments for
a Central High School. Then followed a two-story brick building for a city
hail and public market. Following these in rapid process of evolution from
town to city, a system of waterworks supplied by overflowing artesian wells,
sunk to a depth, of three hundred and fifty feet, with a stand-pipe ninety
feet high, a fire department and a sewerage system were established. The
city was now fully launched and people came from every quarter and began
to invest their money.
The Gulf and Ship Island railroad had been
bought from the Bedford Construction Company by Captain J.T. Jones, of
Buffalo, New York, and the road extended to Jackson, Mississippi, and a
loop built from Maxie in Perry County via Columbia to Mendenhall on the
main line in Simpson County. Hattiesburg, one of the richest and most important
cities of the State, was made the county seat of the new county of Forrest,
new banks were organized and established, a system of electric lights and
telephone lines were built, streets paved, a $75,000 courthouse took the
place of the little structure on Main Street, and a modern five-story hotel,
costing about $200,000, with furnishings second to none in the South, was
erected and thrown open to the public; car shops, machine shops and other
manufactories went up rapidly. Electric car lines were constructed through
the principal streets of the city; the wholesale and jobbing business grew
to large proportions; public schools, colleges and churches multiplied;
one daily and several weekly newspapers were established, and every enterprise
which has been managed with business skill and energy has been successful
in an eminent degree.
Since 1890 the population of Hattiesburg,
according to the Federal census figures, has increased as follows: 1890,
1,172; 1900, 4,175; 1910, 11,733; 1920, 13,270.
Altogether, 36 manufacturing establishments
are listed in Hattiesburg, in which are employed nearly 1,300 wage earners.
The value of the industrial products of the manufactories for 1919 was
$4,500,000, as compared with $1,133,000 five years before. The county as
a whole contains 48 establishments of an industrial nature, which during
1919 disbursed $1,784,000 in wages and had a total output of $6,949,000
in manufactured products. These are cold, conclusive figures, as are those
contained in the chapter on banks and banking, showing the record of the
financial institutions of Hattiesburg.
Besides the flourishing county seat of
Forrest, there are several promising towns along the railroad lines of
the county, among which may be mentioned Maxie, McLaurin, McCallum and
Ralston.
That the industries of Forrest County are
backed by a substantial agricultural region is evident from the census
record of 1920. The value of its farm property in that year was $3,373,000
and of its crops $1,070,000. Its live stock was assessed at $679,000.
So that although one of the youngest political
divisions of Mississippi, Forrest County is one of the leaders in its growth
of today.
