Cook’s Landing was a freight landing on the Tennessee River, located nine miles north of Iuka on an unmarked country road. This is perhaps the oldest settled part of the county, with land patents here having been signed by early United States presidents. Life is static and undisturbed, and except for the clearance being made by TVA for future overflow, little changed after a century or more. Although the country was thickly populated, there was no community at the landing itself. The entire section was inundated when Pickwick Dam was completed and 38,000 acres of land flooded by Pickwick Lake.

The landing owes its name to Marcus Cook, who established a lumber mill here soon after the county was erected. Lumber from the virgin forest build the town of Eastport, three miles upstream, and when Iuka was formed, many of the early houses were constructed out of lumber shipped from Cook’s Landing. The landing here was a natural one, and the site was considered as the location for Pickwick Dam (a landing on Tennessee River) by the government.