Best Kept Secrets
Did you know…
1. The event which led to the creation of the Teddy Bear occurred near Onward, in 1902, when President Theodore Roosevelt, acting upon the suggestion of some friends, visited the state on a hunt for wild game. A bear was located by a member of the hunting party for the President. The bear was exhausted and possibly lame, some claim it was a mere cub. In any case, Roosevelt refused to shoot the helpless bear because he found it unsporting. News of the President's refusal to shoot the bear spread far and wide. Soon after, Morris Michtom, a New York merchant, made toy history when he created a stuffed toy bear and labeled it "Teddy's Bear. " Mr. Michtom placed the bear in the window of his candy store to draw attention. His success was so great that it led to the formation of the Ideal Toy Corporation in 1903. The Teddy Bear continues to be a favorite toy of children everywhere.
2. The Blues is a music form that began in the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, and is considered the only music original to the United States. The University of Mississippi Blues Archive in Oxford, contains the world's largest collection of Blues music.
3. Vardaman is the Sweet Potato Capital of the world. The Sweet Potato Festival is held each November to celebrate this most delectable root.
4. The world's oldest Holiday Inn is located in Clarksdale.
5. The world's first human lung transplant was performed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, in 1963. The world's first heart transplant was performed at the Center the following year.
6. Mississippi College, in Clinton, was the first co-educational college in the United States to grant a degree to a woman.
7. The Petrified Forest, in Flora, is found to be about 36 million years old and is a National Registered Landmark.
8. Mississippi University for Women was the first state college for women in the nation. The college was established in Columbus by an act of the Mississippi Legislature on March 12, 1884.
9. On May 11, 1887, a most unexpected object fell from the sky during a severe hail storm near Bovina. The unusual object proved to be a 6-inch by 8-inch gopher turtle completely encased in ice.
10. Many years ago there was
an old woman living in seclusion along the banks of the Yazoo
River. Yazoo means river of death in the Choctaw Indian language.
Everyone believed her to be a witch and the good folk of Yazoo
City loathed her, for it was rumored that on stormy nights
she lured fishermen into her hut, poisoned them and buried
their bodies in a densely wooded hillside, nearby. The story
goes something like this:
In 1884, Joe Bob Duggett was gliding past her hut on a river
raft and heard an ungodly moaning coming from inside. Very
carefully he approached the dwelling and through the window
spied her cavorting around the bodies of two men. Joe Bob
raced off to town and with the sheriff returned a short time
later. Confronted, the old woman ran into the swamp and was
pursued by the men who found her trapped in quicksand. "I
shall return, " she shouted her warning. "You people
never liked me here. I will break out of my grave and burn
down the town on May 24, 1904, " And with a gurgle and
a retch she sank beneath the muck and mire.
Twenty years later, in 1904, her curse was realized when a
fire occurred and almost completely consumed the town. The
next day a group of citizens, remembering the witch, visited
her grave in Glenwood Cemetery and found, to their astonishment,
that a heavy chain that had been wrapped tightly around the
crypt as a precaution twenty years earlier had been snapped
as if by some supernatural force. Many believed that the Witch
of Yazoo had, as promised, returned to wreak vengeance on
the townspeople. The story is recounted in detail by writer
Willie Morris in his book titled Good Old Boy.
11. Windsor, circa 1860, near
Port Gibson, was the largest antebellum mansion ever built
in Mississippi. Because of its immense size, this stately
home was often incorrectly referred to as a college by Samuel
Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, as he piloted riverboats
up and down the Mississippi River. The mansion's cupola served
as a lookout post for both Union and Confederate patrols,
and the mansion was used as a Union hospital. Windsor survived
the destruction of the Civil War, only to burn in 1890, at
the hands of a careless smoker.
The haunting Ruins of Windsor, with its 23 remaining monolithic
columns, has been filmed extensively and was the site of filming
the major motion picture, RAINTREE COUNTY, staring Elizabeth
Taylor and Montgomery Cliff.
12. Four miles south of Alcorn
is the ghost town of Rodney, settled in 1722. History records
that this once bustling river town was considered for the
state's capital, boasted the state's first opera house, had
over 35 stores and five thousand residents. Andrew Jackson
visited Rodney often and Zachary Taylor was living there when
notified of his presidency.
During the Civil War, the citizens invited some Union gunboat
officials to church. When they accepted, Confederates captured
them. The Union gunboat fired on the town, but soon withdrew
when the Confederates threatened to hang their Yankee captives.
A cannonball remains, to this day, lodged in the brick facade
of the old Rodney Presbyterian Church as a reminder of this
confrontation.
In 1870 the Mississippi River started changing course. Rodney
gradually lost its importance as a river port, and by 1940
was three miles inland. Most of its population had moved away
and it was soon a ghost town. To reach Rodney, travel west
of Lorman on the back roads of Mississippi Highway 558.
13. FRIENDSHIP OAK, in Long Beach, is a magnificent live oak tree more than 500 years old, which measures over 50 feet in height, has a circumference of 17 feet at the trunk, and limbs and foliage that form more than 16,000 feet of shelter. Brides have murmured their vows on the platform built within its sprawling limbs and it is said that those who meet beneath its shadow will remain friends forever. This legendary tree was a sapling when Columbus sailed into the Caribbean, and had begun to bear acorns when Ponce de Leon reached Florida in quest of the Fountain of Youth. Its massive limbs survived the fury of centuries of hurricanes and, if trees could talk it would speak volumes of the history it has witnessed.
14. The world's only cactus plantation is located near Edwards, and grows more than 3,000 varieties of cacti.
15. What does the word Mississippi mean? Mississippi is Choctaw for "Father of Waters, " and refers, of course, to the Mississippi River, from which the State takes its name.
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