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Greenwood is situated in Leflore County, Mississippi at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta, approximately 96 miles north of Jackson, Mississippi, and 130 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. The population was 18,425 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Leflore County. The Tallahatchie River and the Yalobusha River meet at Greenwood to form the Yazoo River. Greenwood is the gateway to the Delta and has a vast array of things to do, places to visit, first-class shopping and wonderful world-renowned dining and lodging options. It is home to such corporations as Viking Range Corp., Milwaukee Electric Tool, Staplcotn, America's Catch and Heartland Catfish, John-Richard, Balkamp and more. Greenwood is alive with cultural opportunities, including live blues music, live theater productions, museum exhibits, offerings of various art and culinary classes and much more.

History

The flood plain of the Mississippi River has long been an area rich in vegetation and wildlife, feeding off the Mississippi and its numerous tributaries. Long before Europeans migrated to America, the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations settled in the Delta’s marsh and swampland. In 1830, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed by Choctaw Chief Greenwood Leflore, opening the swampland to European settlers.

The first settlement on the banks of the Yazoo River was a trading post founded by John Williams in 1830 and known as Williams Landing. The settlement quickly blossomed, and in 1844 was incorporated as “Greenwood,” named after Chief Greenwood Leflore. Growing into a strong cotton market, the key to the city’s success was based on its strategic geographic location in the heart of the Delta; on the easternmost point of the alluvial plain and astride the Tallahatchie River and the Yazoo River. The city served as a shipping point to New Orleans, Louisiana, Vicksburg, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri. Greenwood continued to prosper until the latter part of the American Civil War.

During that war, Greenwood played an important, if little-known, role in the famous Siege of Vicksburg. In early 1863, it was clear that the Union intended to attack the strategic port of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. After failed attempts at a frontal assault of the city, General Ulysses S. Grant hatched a new plan to attack from the rear by way of the Tallahatchie and Yazoo Rivers. A hastily constructed Confederate fort was placed between the two rivers at Fort Pemberton. Here the Confederates met the oncoming Union flotilla with fierce resistance, successfully stopping their advance. As a result, Grant abandoned the Yazoo Expedition and retreated north to the Mississippi River to assault Vicksburg by another route.

The end of the Civil War in the mid-1860’s and the following year of Reconstruction severely diminished the cotton industry and crippled the city’s previously thriving economy. Greenwood saw very little growth during these years of hardship.

The arrival of railroads in the 1880’s saved the city – with two lines running to downtown Greenwood, close to the Yazoo River. Once again, Greenwood emerged as a prime shipping point for cotton. Downtown’s Front Street bordering the Yazoo bustled with cotton factors and other related businesses, earning that section the name Cotton Row. The city continued to prosper in this way well into the 1940’s.

Today, in the twenty-first century, Greenwood is experiencing a renaissance. Its historic downtown boasts dozens of completed renovations with several others in progress. There are upscale shops, unique dining experiences, a boutique hotel, galleries and museums. All the while, Greenwood has retained its small-town beauty, Delta personality and deep-South hospitality.

(from the Greenwood Convention and Visitor’s Bureau)

The Coming of Tourism and the Blue Parrot Migration

The establishment of Greenwood as a tourist destination came with the revitalization of Howard Street in historic Downtown Greenwood. Beginning in 2001 with the opening of the Greenwood Blues Heritage Museum & Gallery.

One location on Howard St. that was revitalized between 2002 and 2006 is the historic Three Deuces building (222 Howard St). This is now also home to the Greenwood Blues Heritage Museum & Gallery, which has recently enlarged to include a radio museum and a local history room. Also operating from the location is Greenwood Heritage Tours, offering local excursions to tourists interested in blues, civil war, civil rights, cotton plantations, literature and Native Americans. An interesting fact about the Three Dueces building is that it is the former home of radio station (WGRM) in which the King of the Blues, B.B. King, made his first radio broadcast. Memorialization of that fact will occur later in 2006 when King will participate in the dedication of the building and the erection of a Mississippi Blues Trail Historical Marker. Greenwood Blues Heritage Museum & Gallery The Museum,which opened in 2001 contains within it many historical and interesting artifacts concerning the life and music of Blues legend, Robert Johnson. It offers for public perusal, the collection of its owner/curator, music historian and Grammy Award-winning blues record producer, Stephen LaVere, who, with his wife, Regina, moved to Greenwood from California the year before.

Also within the three deuces building is the Blue Parrot Cafe & Veronica's - Custom Bakery. Opened in 2003, Veronica's is the first artisan bakery in Greenwood in more than 30 years.

Notable businesses that make their home on Howard Street in addition to the Three Deuces (Blue Parrot Cafe & Veronica's - Custom Bakery and the Greenwood Blues Heritage Museum & Gallery) and the Alluvian adjuncts, include Olde World Antiques, Russell's Antiques, Turnrow Books (formerly Dancing Rabbit Bookstore), Melon Patch (ladies' clothes), Sweet Pea (children's clothing), Mississippi Gift Company (offering exclusively Mississippi items and art), Fincher's Gifts, Traditions (gift store & frame shop), Ashley's Rug World, Fincher's Antiques and several bank headquarters.

With the true historic preservation efforts of LaVere and other private developers, Greenwood has truly turned into a small-town tourist destination.

Viking Range Corporation

The renaissance ensued in Greenwood with the opening of The Alluvian Hotel on Howard Street in mid-2003. Built by Greenwood-based Viking Range Corporation, The Alluvian is a cosmopolitan boutique hotel located in the heart of historic downtown Greenwood.

Viking and other private ventures have flourished in the blocks surrounding The Alluvian, including various retail stores and antique shops. What had been a deserted downtown since the Cotton Boom era, has begun to return to its former glory as the well to do central business district of Greenwood.

Viking soon followed with the opening of a lavish 7,000-square-foot spa, a sophisticated cooking school and an artisan bakery in 2005, a revitalization effort of the classic cotton town that proponents dub the dawn of "Delta chic.” The Alluvian Spa, Viking Cooking School and the Mockingbird Bakery are all the work of Viking Hospitality Group, and serve as entertainment for the largely corporate clientele that Viking brings to town for training and demonstrations.

African-American Heritage

The African-American contribution to the Greenwood region is invaluable. In fact, the Delta has exported as much music as cotton, sprouted from the spirit of the people. That spirit rose from historic neighborhoods such as Browning Community in Greenwood, the oldest African-American community in Mississippi, and home to the important Browning Artesian Well. The spirit was fed by the town and country churches, including the areas oldest African-American church, Wesley United Methodist in downtown Greenwood, organized in 1870. The spirit was shaped by centers of learning such as Mississippi Valley State University, which has borne generation of historic figures, from sports stars and Olympians to Civil Rights leader and present-day civic leaders.

Leflore County has produced extraordinary music stars, from the early bluesmen such as Mississippi John Hurt and Walter "Furry" Lewis to the talent of today including B.B. King, Hubert Sumlin and Denise LaSalle. Another famous blues musician, Robert Johnson, has three memorial gravestones in the Greenwood area. In the area of sports, Greenwood native Willye White followed the advice of her father and found her future far outside the cotton fields as a five-time Olympian and a medalist.

Not all great African-Americans left the Delta. Others stayed and forged freedom a day at a time, through their own efforts and by welcoming noted Civil Rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King held a rally in the summer of 1966, along with Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Floyd McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Sites such as East Percy Street Christian Church and the home of the late Dewey Greene were Civil Rights-era meeting places.

The Mississippi Delta is rich in the accomplishments of African-Americans who struggled, transcended, created, inspired and motivated.

(from the Greenwood Convention and Visitor’s Bureau)

Famous Greenwoodians

Greenwood Trivia

  • Greenwood is one of the few places in the world where you can stand between two rivers flowing in the opposite direction: the Yazoo River and the Tallahatchie River.
  • Legend has it that The Leflore County Courthouse in Greenwood stands on Choctaw land once used for rituals and sacraments.
  • The City of Greenwood is named after Choctaw Indian Chief Greenwood Leflore, who negotiated the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek with the U.S. Government.
  • Cottonlandia Museum in Greenwood houses furniture from Chief Greenwood Leflore’s mansion Malmaison, which was destroyed by fire in 1942.
  • Greenwood known as the Cotton Capital of the World and boasts the second largest cotton exchange in the nation located on Cotton Row.
  • The Tallahatchie River in Greenwood contains relics of the Union side-wheel steamship, Star of the West, sunk to prevent passage of the Union flotilla to Vicksburg.
  • Walter "Furry" Lewis was born in Greenwood in March 1899 and became the first bluesman ever to perform on a phonograph recording the bottleneck method of playing guitar.
  • Keesler Bridge in Greenwood is a swing bridge of the Howe Truss design and a dedicated Mississippi landmark.
  • Helen Keller gave a speech about happiness in Greenwood on March 29, 1916.
  • John Phillip Sousa conducted a concert in Greenwood in 1930.
  • Robert Johnson died and was buried just north of Greenwood in August 1938 and now has three memorial gravestones set across the county in his memory.
  • B.B. King, King of the Blues, was born near Itta Bena at Berclair in Leflore County in 1925 and initiated his career in the mid-1940s on a broadcast over Greenwood’s WGRM located at 222 Howard Street - upstairs (now home of the Greenwood Blues Heritage Museum & Gallery) as guitarist for the St. John’s Gospel Singers quartet from nearby Indianola.
  • In 1944, Time Magazine covered The Greenwood Mule Race, attended by over 5,000 people.
  • Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman graduated from high school in Greenwood in 1955.
  • Young Emmett Till's abduction from the home of relatives at Money, Mississippi (just north of Greenwood) and subsequent murder in August 1955 sparked the civil rights movement.
  • Little Richard sang a song titled, “Greenwood, Mississippi”
  • The movies Ode to Billie Joe, The Reivers and Mississippi Masala were filmed on location in Greenwood.
  • Greenwood sites used in the filming of John Grisham's “The Chamber” include Webster’s Restaurant where you can sit and eat steak and seafood on the same barstool as Chris O’Donnell.
  • The largest Bible-binding plant in the nation is Norris Bookbinding located in Greenwood.

City Government

Greenwood is governed by city council form of government composed of council members from seven wards and headed by a strong mayor.

Current City Officials (as of 2006):

Mayor:

  • Harry L. Smith (R)

Council Members:

  • Ward 1: Johnny Jennings (R)
  • Ward 2: John Lee (R)
  • Ward 3: Ronnie Stevenson (D)
  • Ward 4: Charles McCoy, Sr. (D)
  • Ward 5: Tennill Cannon (D)
  • Ward 6: David Jordan (D)
  • Ward 7: Taylor Dillard (D)

City Attorney:

  • Billy Bowman

City Clerk:

  • Deirdre Mayes

Education

Post-Secondary Institutions:

Greenwood Public Schools: (*)

  • Greenwood High School
  • Greenwood Middle School
  • Bankston Elementary
  • Davis Elementary
  • Threadgill Elementary
  • W.C. Williams Elementary

Private Schools:

  • Pillow Academy (*)

Parochial Schools:

  • St. Francis of Assisi

Media and Publishing

Newspapers, Magazines and Journals
  • The Greenwood Commonwealth (published daily except Saturday) (*)
  • Leflore Illustrated (published yearly)

Television:

  • WABG, ABC Affiliate (Channel 6)
  • WMAO, PBS Affiliate (Channel 23)

AM/FM Radio:

  • WABG, 960 AM
  • WGNL, 104.3 FM
  • WGRM, 1240 AM & 93.9 FM
  • WKXG, 1540 AM
  • WMAO, 90.9 FM
  • WYMX, 99.1 FM

Transportation

Railroads

Greenwood is served by two major railroad lines: the Columbus and Greenville Railway and the Canadian National Railway-Illinois Central Railroad. Amtrak’s City of New Orleans train connects Greenwood with Chicago, Illinois; Memphis, Tennessee; Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana. The Amtrak station is located at 506 Carrollton Avenue.

Air Transportation

Greenwood (GWO) is served by Greenwood-Leflore Airport to the east and is located midway between Jackson, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee and about halfway between Dallas, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia.

Highways

Employers

The largest employers in Leflore County are:

Sites of interest

Museums and History

Historic Downtown:

  • Viking Range Corporate Headquarters
  • The Viking Cooking School
  • The Viking Culitary Arts Center
  • The Alluvian Hotel
  • The Alluvian Spa
  • Mockingbird Bakery
  • Three Deuces Building - 222 Howard Street
  • Greenwood Blues Heritage Museum & Gallery
  • Staplcotn Corporate Headquarters
  • Cotton Row

Fine Dining:

  • Blue Parrot Cafe
  • Crystal Grill
  • Delta Fresh Market
  • Flatland Grill
  • Giardina’s
  • Lusco’s
  • Webster’s
  • Yianni’s

Geography

Greenwood is located at (33.518719, -90.183883).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 24.7 km² (9.5 mi²). 23.9 km² (9.2 mi²) of it is land and 0.8 km² (0.3 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 3.15% water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 18,425 people, 6,916 households, and 4,523 families residing in the city. The population density was 771.6/km² (1,997.8/mi²). There are 7,565 housing units at an average density of 316.8/km² (820.3/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 32.82% White, 65.36% Black, 0.11% Native American, 0.91% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 0.24% from other races, and 0.48% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.03% of the population.

There were 6,916 households out of which 34.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 33.4% are married couples living together, 27.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.6% were non-families. 31.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.59 and the average family size was 3.29.

In the city the population was spread out with 31.0% under the age of 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 26.7% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 13.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females there were 84.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 75.9 males.

The median income for a household in the city is $21,867, and the median income for a family was $26,393. Males had a median income of $27,267 versus $18,578 for females. The per capita income for the city was $14,461. 33.9% of the population and 28.8% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 47.0% of those under the age of 18 and 20.0% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.

External links

Cities in Mississippi | Leflore County, Mississippi

Greenwood, Mississippi

 

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