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Tunica County


TUNICA COUNTY

Chapter XLVIII, pages 840-842

This is one of the rich counties of northwestern Mississippi located in the Mississippi Delta. It was established February 9, 1836, and is one of the twelve counties formed in that year from the Chickasaw Indian cession of 1832. It was named for the Tunica Indian tribe, the word meaning “the people.” As originally established, Tunica County embraced an area of about 19 townships, or 684 square miles, and its limits were thus defined: “Beginning at the northwestern corner of Tallahatchie County, and running thence due north to the dividing line between the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of Indians; thence with the said dividing line to the Mississippi River; thence up the said river, to the point where the line between townships 2 and 3 intersects the same; thence with the said township line, to the line between ranges 9 and 10 west; thence south with the said range line, and from its termination in a direct line to the northern boundary of Tallahatchie County, and thence west with said northern boundary, to the beginning.” In 1873 it surrendered a part of its territory to Tate, and another portion in 1877 to Quitman, which reduced its area to 418 square miles. The Mississippi River washes its entire western border, the county of De Soto lies to the north and east, Tate and Panola counties on the east, the Coldwater River now forming the boundary between Tunica and Tate, and Quitman and Coahoma counties, on the south.

A few of the prominent early settlers of the region were Walter H. Bell, the first representative from the county in the lower house of the legislature: E.H. Bridges, Probate Judge; J.H. Bridges, Sheriff; Joseph A. McNeely, Justice of the Peace; Wm. Camoon, Probate Clerk; T.W. Floyd, Circuit Clerk; R.J. Thornton, _____ Smith, William Phillips, James Porter, John Ballard, members of Board of Police, and Lorenzo A. Besancon, S. May, T.M. Fletcher, R.H. Byrne, Alfred Cox, James D. Hallam (Senator from Tunica 1837-1838), who were early members of the legislature from Tunica county.

Tunica, the present county seat, is an attractive and wide awake town of about 1,000 people, which was built up on the line of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad and is a substantial center of trade. Evansville, Hollywood, Robinsonville, Maud and Dundee are some of the other stations along the line of that road. On the Mississippi River are two of the early county seats, or what remains of them. Commerce is the oldest town in the county, but did not compare as a flourishing river center with Austin, the other county seat. At one time the latter had a population of 2,000 people, with a large river and inland trade.

Tunica has the distinction of having within its bounds the place where Hernando De Soto discovered the Mississippi River, which, following authentic original records and historians generally, was at or near Commerce Landing, situated on the old “Willow Point.”

Two lines of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad run through the county from north to south, so that the region is amply supplied with shipping facilities both by rail and water. Besides the Mississippi River on the western border, and the Coldwater River on the eastern border, other waters in the county are Buck’s Creek, Coon Bayou, Flower Lake, Walnut Lake and Beaver Dam Lake. The entire county is composed of level alluvial land of exceeding richness and fertility.

The rapid increase in the value of the farm properties of Tunica County is shown in the census figures for the past twenty years. In 1900, the valuation was placed at $4,000,000, in 1910 at $9,000,000, and in 1920 at $29,000,000. The statistics covering 1919 indicate that virtually the entire agricultural labor, as far as human beings is concerned is performed by negroes. Less than 300 white farmers were listed in the county, as compared with more than 4,600 negroes. The crops, as a whole, were valued at $9,638,000, of which a large percentage was realized from cotton. The area represented by the cotton fields of Tunica County amounted to 84,500 acres, and 38,000 bales were sent out in 1919. Thus the county was among the first half a dozen counties in Mississippi as a producer of cotton. As the live stock operations of the region center in the cultivation of the land, especially in the raising of cotton, the chief attention in those lines is given to the raising of mules. In 1919, the value of all the live stock in the county was placed at $2,025,000, of which the mules were estimated at $1,465,000.

The natural riches of Tunica County have constantly maintained an increasing population, with an overwhelming preponderance of negroes. There was no check in the increase even during the war period covered by 1860 and 1870. In 1850, there were 1,314 people in the county; in 1870, 5,358, 1890, 12,158; 1910, 18,646; 1920, 20,044. The census of 1920 showed that there were about 2,000 whites and 18,000 negroes in the county.
 


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Source:  Mississippi The Heart of the South - By Dunbar Rowland, LL.D - Director of the Mississippi State Department of Archives and History.  Vol. II Illustrated.  Chicago-Jackson;  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1925. Public Domain
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