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Godmother of the Blues

These days it’s difficult enough to think about a turntable at all, much less to think about one as a piece of furniture. But in the middle decades of the 20th century, they became mammoths.

These record players (for that’s essentially what they were, hi-fi or stereo) came in all sorts of styles to match your other furniture, too: Mediterranean, French provincial, Queen Ann, you name it. Furniture stores sold these primitive behemoths as well as recordings themselves, and it’s through the furniture business that Lillian Shedd McMurry, a former secretary and law student, fell down a rabbit hole and into the land of the blues.

According to her nephew, recording artist John Webb (“Wilder”) McMurry, “My Uncle Willard, Lillian’s husband, and his family weren’t real musical folks. They all had furniture stores. Willard and a furniture store, my dad, Webb, had a furniture store, and my uncle Carl had Super Furniture Market in Jackson. Willard’s niche was used furniture stores and he would buy the pre-existing stock out of a bankrupt store and get it going again. So there was some stock in a hardware store Willard had bought on Farish Street that included 78s of black music, what would have been called “race music” at the time. Lillian had a lot of get-up-and-go, had played the piano early in her life and was interested in music. But she knew nothing about blues or secular music.”

Lillian selected a record and put it on the turntable The record she chose was Wynnie “Mr. Blues” Harris’s “All She Wants to Do Is Rock”, and according to an interview with Living Blues magazine in 1986, what she heard changed her life. “It was the most unusual, sincere and solid sound I’d ever heard,” she said. “I’d never heard anything with such rhythm and freedom.”

“So Lillian,” Webb continued, “being enterprising, set the rest of the records out on the counter and they sold like hot cakes. And she began to get more involved.” Lillian acquired more records and began selling them on a full-time basis. She made trips to New Orleans and Memphis to bring in more recordings and eventually the couple converted the hardware store into a record/furniture store called Record Mart-Furniture Bargains.

The store specialized in blues, gospel and what was then called “hillbilly” music. Between walk-ins and mail orders the business began to thrive. “The Record Mart became a very big mail-order business,” Webb said. “I didn’t know until recently how big a deal that was.” It wasn’t long before Lillian got the idea to record her own material using local talent. Lillian and Willard McMurry became the founders and owners of the Diamond Record Company, which released records on the Trumpet label. “God, I didn’t know what I was getting into,” Lillian said later.

What she was getting into was a pioneering position in the roots music recording industry. The label’s first releases were gospel recordings by the St. Andrews Gospelaires, a 3-piece jubilee group from the Enoch Grove Baptist Church, and the Southern Sons, who were the most popular and influential gospel groups performing during the early 50s in the Mississippi Delta. McMurry made many trips to the Delta to sign up talent, and on one she signed up a “harp” player who called himself Sonny Boy Williamson. Sonny Boy Had garnered a devoted following through his appearances on “King Biscuit Time” over station WFFA in Helena, Arkansas.

McMurry signed Sonny Boy to a contract in December, 1950. She did not learn until years later that his real name was Alex “Rice” Miller. Miller had appropriated the name of another highly-regarded harmonica-playing blues singer because he had once been convicted of stealing a mule from a neighbor. He had whitewashed the mule, which was a sure disguise for the animal until the next inevitable Delta downpour. With McMurry riding herd on him, Sonny Boy Williamson (II) turned out a string of blues standards, including “Eyesight to the Blind”, “Nine Below Zero” and “Red Hot Kisses”, written by Lillian herself. Sonny Boy also wrote a tribute to McMurry’s car, which was recorded as “Pontiac Blues”.

Edward Komara, former head of the Blues Archive at the University of Mississippi, said, “The main thing I remember about Lillian McMurry is her toughness, which was a combination of a low tolerance for bullshit and a lion-taming instinct. This toughness was not something she had to develop while running Trumpet. She may have well had it since birth. She was also born with a pageant-quality beauty, as evidenced by the published photos of her in her 50s, taken during the Trumpet years. But musicians and record industry people alike learned she was much more than a pretty face.”

However she came by it, Lillian McMurry’s toughness became a key asset in the rough-and-tumble world of the independent record business. Sonny Boy Williamson, her biggest star, was hard-drinking, cantankerous and prone to drunken brawling. Williamson also carried a knife and a gun and freely used profane language, but only once around Lillian. Legend has it that when Williamson began cursing in the studio one day, Lillian told him to leave. When he refused, McMurry took his own gun, which she had taken the precaution to relieve him of, marched him outside and sent him on his way. A much-humbled Williamson returned a couple of weeks later, and McMurry took him back in.

According to Webb, McMurry had problems with other artists as well. “She had Elmore James under contract, but Elmore had problems sticking to it. At one point, she got a tip-off and had to go to Canton to bust up a recording session that Elmore had no right to do. There’s actually a tape recording of a telephone conversation between Elmore and Lillian where he’s asking about coming back, and she said, ‘Well, Elmore, would you stand hitched?’ meaning would he honor a contract. But he never followed up on it.”

Elmore James’s only Trumpet recording, “Dust My Broom”, became a nation-wide hit and a classic in the blues repertoire. “She and Willard were visiting with my parents when I was in high school or junior high, and she was sitting there in the front room and I was dashing out the door with a vinyl copy of “Tommy” by The Who. And she said something like, ‘Oh, I thought the rock opera was an abortion,’ or an abomination or something like that. And I left thinking, ‘Well what does she know?’ but later I realized they recorded HER song wrong. She cut the original ‘Eyesight for the Blind’ but they did it in a minor key with a whole different feel and melody.”

But the Trumpet label was short-lived. Even with such brilliant talent stock as Jerry McCain, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup and Willie Love, competition with labels having deeper pockets eventually proved to be too much. According to blues aficionado Dr. Woody Sistrunk, “One of the biggest reasons Trumpet ended was that a large record distributor in Texas went broke. And back then, it was not cash for sale. A lot of business was on credit, especially as records became hits. If a record became a hit, you had to get it to a pressing plant, and no one had a pressing plant except for the big labels. You had to have it pressed, and if you didn’t get paid by your distributors, or one-stops as it were for stocking juke boxes at the time, you simply didn’t have any money to pay them off,” Sistrunk explained.

“At the very end of Trumpet, Sonny Boy Williamson was the biggest artist that the label had. His contract was traded to Buster Williams’ Plastic Products in Memphis as a trade for some of the label’s debts,” Sistrunk said. “Williams then turned over Sonny Boy’s contract to the Chess Brothers with options, who in turn picked up Sonny Boy and ran with him.”

After only five years (1951-56) in the business, this was Trumpet’s last note. “That was it, except for another $50,000 that Lillian and Willard had to absorb, which they did strictly through hard work,” Sistrunk said. “A lot of people don’t realize how important their studio was. Many of the records were cut at the old State Furniture Company at 211 State Street on the corner of State and Pearl. For a long time, they would cut records in the back room on Sunday afternoons with someone else’s equipment. But by 1954, they had a studio at 309 Farish Street where they were cutting a number of things. That was another big expense during 1953-54, and that set them back some as well.”

Lillian McMurry was a scrupulous businesswoman, a meticulous bookkeeper and obsessive when it came to royalties. “For eight years, I maintained her Trumpet papers at the Blues Archive,” Komara said, “and she never let a single detail slip by. She fought hard and successfully for the artists whose financial estates she assisted. She continued until her death to assist her Trumpet recording artists, scoundrels though they sometimes were. She demanded honesty and got honesty and delivery of contracted promises from them during the recording sessions, and in return she made sure they received what was due.”

Vitrice, Williard and Lillian McMurry in the 1980s (image via “Trumpet Records: Diamonds on Farish Street”, Marc W. Ryan)

“She knew about artists’ egos and she protected them, plus she knew about artists’ sufferings and made sure they all got paid,” Sistrunk said. Vitrice McMurry Rankin, Lillian and Willard’s daughter, said, “Mom was always a strong-willed and fierce person who fought for what was right, treated the musicians with a great deal of dignity and fought for their rights. She was incredibly cagey, and could deal with copyright lawyers on a level of legal think so that she was able to win most of the suits she brought. “

“She was actually close to graduating from Jackson School of Law when she met my Dad and got married, which seems untypical of her that she wouldn’t have gone ahead and finished school,” Rankin said. “She had that kind of steel clamp of a mind that could handle thousands and thousands of legal ramifications and technicalities and argue to the death. I think some of the settlements she got were just to get her off their backs because she was so utterly relentless in her pursuing of these people who did so much bold-faced thievery. She would tend to spend $10,000 to make $10,000. Who knows ultimately if financially it was worth it, but ethically it was, because so many people were vindicated.”

But McMurry’s upstanding business ethics were often sorely lacking in other recording business personalities of the 50s. And the demise of the Trumpet label may have been in part to unscrupulous machinations on the part of other record labels. “Lillian told me that there were some people who wanted to press her out of the business,” Sistrunk said. “And one big label allegedly said, ‘If you stock her labels, we won’t let you stock ours.’ This was a big label, and every jukebox carried this label, and it seemed pretty ugly.”

After McMurry got out of the music business, she still maintained a studio. According to Sistrunk, “’From the Bottom’ and a lot of the later Sonny Boy Williamson songs were recorded there, and she was the one ‘at the knobs’ when Earl King did ‘Those Lonely, Lonely Nights’ for Ace Records. ‘Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woofie Flu’ could very well have been recorded there as well.”

The impact of the Trumpet label on American music has been profound and lasting. “You can’t describe Trumpet’s contribution to music history strictly within a blues niche,” Sistrunk said. “You’d have to describe it in terms of the music of Mississippi that was not being recorded, that being gospel with the Southern Sons Gospel Quartet, that being Lucky Joe Almond, Jimmy Swan and all the other hillbilly artists and that being Sonny Boy Williamson and Willie Love with the blues.”

“All of those folded together are basically what made rock-and-roll as we know it. It’s all incredible.”

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Pondering Divinity

Welty, a conscientious cook as well as an authority on human nature, provides a sublime observation on two manifestations of divinity in The Ponder Heart..

God bless Uncle Daniel! If anyone can be generous to a fault it’s him, though Grandpa called it an open disposition and claimed that within the realm of reason there were people who would take advantage of such, which is how Uncle Daniel, attracting love and friendship with the best will and the lightest heart in the world, ended up with Grandpa in his new Studebaker sitting with old Judge Tip Calahan driving through the country on his way to the asylum in Jackson. From the word go Uncle Daniel got more vacations than anyone because they couldn’t find a thing in the world wrong with him, and he was so precious all he had to do was ask and he’d be on the branch-line train headed back to Clay County. Everybody missed Uncle Daniel so bad when he was gone that they spent all their time at the post office sending him things to eat. Divinity travels perfectly, if you ever need to know.

Pecan Divinity

It’s important to know that divinity, as with all recipes using whipped egg whites, is best made in dry weather. Having said that, boil three cups of sugar, one-half cup of Karo corn syrup, three-fourths cup of water to the hard ball stage. Beat the whites of two eggs  with a teaspoon each salt and vanilla until stiff. Pour the warm syrup over the whites and blend in chopped pecans. When it begins to harden drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper or spread in a  oiled pan and cut to shape.

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Pizza Den’s Submarine Sandwich

Frank Bowen sent me this recipe, and here I reproduce his original mail with the reminder that while the location has changed. Pizza Den is still open, and Bob’s family is carrying on the tradition of great local food in Oxford. Go see them the next time you’re there.

The following is a recipe that was posted on an Ole Miss Spirit message board several years ago. I made it several times and can attest that it is faithful to the original at the Pizza Den. It is not in standard recipe format, but it tells how to make the sandwich very well. I don’t know who made the post. He had a user name of Reblanta. I have found that the instructions of letting it rest on the counter for 15-20 minutes to simulate delivery is an important step.

Pizza Bob’s Famous Submarine Sandwich

In May, 1983, I had just bought a new car and decided that I would take it out on the road and drive up to Oxford for the afternoon, primarily to drop by Pizza Den and pick up some submarines to take back home and share with my Ole Miss friends that night. Things were slow late that afternoon when I got there but Pizza Bob was in good spirits. Since nobody else was there, I decided to broach the sacred subject on just how Bob made his famous submarine sandwich. Whether he was thinking of the good times he’d had in Nam, the money he had made off of me over the years, or perhaps he just felt sorry for me, I couldn’t tell, but this is what he told me. I watched him make the submarines and committed the process to memory.

Take your baguette, split it down the middle. Pour butter over the open slices of bread, sprinkle on a generous portion of both Parmesan and mozzarella cheese and place several thin slices of ham, salami, AND luncheon meat! Bob dusted all slices in between with the same cheese mixture, then in the middle of the meats he ladled in spaghetti sauce. Over the top of the meats he sprinkled more of the cheese mixture and then placed the other half of the bread on top. Finally, just as he was ready to seal up the sandwich in foil, he poured more melted butter over all. I cook mine about 20 minutes total in 350 degrees, turning it over about half way to disperse the butter evenly throughout. Finally, to make it authentic, take it out of the oven, and leave it on the counter top for about 15 to 20 minutes to simulate the delivery to Fraternity Row. Always remember to press the sandwich down as well.

I make it a point to make “Pizza Bobs” for every first televised football game of the year and I suggest that you do as well. I make mine exactly like he told me to except for that luncheon meat stuff. I hope that when you make your “Pizza Bob” sandwiches, you’ll think of Pizza Bob. I once heard this said and believe it now to be true: If food were a religion, Pizza Bob would be the High Priest.

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Magic Pie

The Southern boomer table—for which, I might add, I barely qualify—is peppered with dishes fabricated in company test kitchens. Green bean casserole is likely the most conspicuous example, but there are dozens of others.

Many commercial dessert  recipes include the word “magic,” as if merely waving your hands over the ingredients would produce a cake, pie, or cookie. This recipe is from The Country Gourmet, distributed by the Mississippi Animal Rescue League in 1983. The book features a short forward by Eudora Welty, who writes, “Guarding and protecting, trying to save, all life on earth is a need we all alike share.”

Beat six ounces of whipped topping with a thawed can of lemonade concentrate and a can of condensed milk. Pour into a graham cracker pie crust and freezer one hour before serving.

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Hometown Calhoun

Hometown Mississippi is an informative and entertaining book compiled by James F. (Jim) Brieger and published privately in 1980. It’s also an important work, since it includes all of Mississippi’s towns and counties of record, with a short write-up providing significant data. These are the entries for Calhoun County; Pittsboro, as county seat, is first listed, then the others alphabetically. Interestingly, the town of Heron on the map below is not on the list.

CALHOUN COUNTY

Organized in 1852, Calhoun County is located in the Sand Clay Hills Soil Area of the state. It was the fifty-ninth county to organize and ranks thirtythird in area. The county was named for John C. Calhoun, Vice-President of the United States, and at the time of formation, Henry s. Foote was Governor of Mississippi, and Millard Fillmore was President of the United States. Calhoun was the home county of Dennis Murphree, twice Governor of Mississippi, 1927-28 and 1943-44.

PITTSBORO

Pittsboro was founded on July 26, 1852 along with Calhoun County. The county seat was temporarily located at Hartfords, four miles east of the present site of Pittsboro, with monthly court being held in a log building which was used as a courthouse, Hartford did not remain for long as the county seat as the geographical center of the county was determined to be within a few hundred yards of Camp Springs,

On July 15, 1852, the Board of Police met at this point to discuss the matter of a permanent county seat, and Ebenezer Gaston, a wealthy local citizen offered 160 acres as a gift to the county for the location of a seat of government. The gift was accepted by the board and the proposed new town was named Orrsville, for J.A. Orr who had been very instrumental in the organization of the county. The name of the town was later changed to Pittsboro, for Pittsboro, North Carolina, which was Mr. Orr’s original home.

The Odom Grocery Store was the first building to be constructed, and in 1853, the Pittsboro Academy was established, being conducted in a two-story log building. In 1886, a frame building was erected to house the Pittsboro Male and Female College, then in 1888, Honorable B.J. Lowery, noted educator and statesman, taught his first school as principal of this college. The red brick courthouse was built the same year as the log jail, in 1856. In this courthouse the Secession Convention was held in 1861, and many other events connected with the war and reconstruction centered around it.

Pittsboro has had its times of prosperity and adversity, but has remained the county seat throughout the years, with many attempts having been made to move it, but all failed. In 1922 the courthouse was destroyed by fire, with the loss of almost all the records.

BANNER

Located eight miles north of Brice, Banner is one of the oldest existing places in the county, being settled by the Finn family from Ireland in 1840. The story is told, that Uncle Mickey Finn gave his reason for coming to America was the fact that land was so high in his native Ireland that he could not afford to buy a burial plot for his family. When he bought his land here and gave it the name, Banner, he immediately built a house, then he marked off a family burying ground,

Several large planters and slave owners were permanently settled here before the Civil War, and the town was known as a social as well as an educational center. A college was established in 1889 which offered commercial and music courses, but with the establishment of public schools the college became extinct. Since the start of the 1900’s, the place has been on the decline because of its remote location,

BENELA

The origin of its name is not known, but Benela was established eight miles southeast of Pittsboro in 1840. There were settlers here in the early 1830’s, but Benela was not founded until 1840 when Hugh Gaston came here with several others to establish business enterprises,

In 1853, Dr. S.T. Buchanan, Captain Enoch, Wiley and Austin Woodward settled here and Benela soon became a thriving trade center. In 1865 the town boasted six stores, two saloons, a large water mill and manufacturing plant. Being located on the Yalobusha River, cotton was transported to Greenwood by keel boat, bringing back supplies on their return trip. Lumber was also shipped down the river in rafts until the railroad was built to Calhoun City in 1905.

The growth of Benela was impeded by the fact that the railroad missed the town, and its rivals, Calhoun City and Derma gained the supremacy in leadership growth, and as trading centers, The Church, mill, and school were finally abandoned and the community became a farming area, using other points as trading centers,

BENTLEY

Bentley, located ten miles southeast of Calhoun City, was established in 1844 by Jesse H. Bently, the first settler, who erected a water mill on nearby Bear Creek. The town was incorporated in 1911.

BIG CREEK

Big Creek was founded eight miles west of Calhoun City in the 1840’s, The first settlers were R. Chruthird and Abram Sellers in the early 1840’s, being joined by other pioneers between 1845 and 1855. At this time Big Creek was located two miles north of its present location and was the distributing point for the sale of whiskey, with a wholesale house having been opened here,

Being so far from the railroad, the growth of the town was slow but with the building of the highway, two miles to the south, Big Creek was moved to its present location near the highway in 1920 with more stores being added and a post office being established.

BOUNDS

About 1824, J.R, Bounds, a cattleman, settled almost midway between the Skuna and Yalobusha Rivers, about eight miles west of present-day Pittsboro. His brother, Henry Bounds, joined him in 1828 and they found an ideal cattle range between the two streams. The two brothers rented this land from an Indian sub-chief named Bob Cole during their first two years of settlement, but later bought the land.

BRUCE

Bruce was founded in 1927 when the E.L. Bruce Lumber Company purchased a vast acreage in this section, four miles north of Pittsboro and established their large mill three miles north of Pittsboro in the Skuna Valley. The company purchased the Thurman Barton farm which became the home of George Rogers, Superintendent of the Bruce interests.

Johnny Main Mountain, six miles east of Brue, is the highest point in the county, covering several acres. Some remarkable rock formations are found on the mountain, and Skuna River flows around the base on the north side. According to legend, this mountain was the home of a prominent Chickasaw Chief named Piomingo at the time the Indians occupied this section. The mountain received its name from Johnny Main, an old Dutchman who hunted and trapped here during the 1860’s.

BUSYTON

Busyton was established about 1865, four miles south of Sarepta, and at one time a post office was located two miles to the southeast, but it was discontinued in 1905. Sometime after 1905, when State Highway 9 was improved, J.T. Ivy built a store on the highway and called it Busyton.

CALHOUN CITY

Federal Land Records show that the site on which Calhoun City stands, ten miles south of Bruce, was conveyed to an Indian named Ish tah hath la, T.P. Gore purchased an entire section of 640 acres from this Indian, supposedly for a handful of bright-colored beads, a few furs, and several quarts of whiskey. Being a large slave owner, Gore cleared a plantation and lived an easy life, in which horse racing and cock fighting figured prominently. Before his death he is thought to have buried a great amount of gold on his plantation, but died without revealing its hiding place. He is buried near Calhoun City in a wooded section of his former plantation,

In 1900 the Gore property passed into the hands of T.L. Beadles and Jeff Boland, being purchased from them in 1904 by Frank Burkett and J.S. Rowe. The place was named Burkett for Frank Bukett, but the name was later changed to Calhoun City for John C, Calhoun. These men learned that the Mobile & Ohio Railroad was planning to build a branch line through this section and made plans for the building of a town. One mile east lived two other landowners who were demanding that the terminal be located on their land. A legal battle was fought, and the court decided in favor of both places, so just one mile east of Calhoun City was established the town of Derma, Because of this matter, hard feelings existed between the towns cor several years.

The present town of Calhoun City was surveyed and laid off in lots in 1905. That same year, a hotel was built and a central parkway was laid out, awaiting the time when Pittsboro would relinquish its claim to the county seat and a courthouse could be erected.

The year of 1906 brought the incorporation of Calhoun City as well as many new families. On the first Sunday in January, 1907, the first passenger train ariived in Calhoun City. This was a great event in the history of the town and people, many of whom had never seen a train, came from miles around to witness the arrival.

DENTONTOWN

Located fourteen miles southwest of Pittsboro.

DERMA

In 1905, upon learning of the railroad to be built from Okalona to Calhoun City, Frank Burkett and J.S. Rowe immediately made plans for the establishment of a town in the vicinity of Calhoun City. Just one mile east lived J.M. Smith and Dr. S.H. Lawrence who also proposed to build a depot and town, Heated controversy resulted in a court decision in favor of both places, and soon there sprang up two rival towns. It is said that in time, Captain Burkett and Dr, Lawrence, both Civil War Veterans, were able to ease the friction between the two towns to a large extent. During the early history of the town, Derma enjoyed gradual growth which continued until the depression of 1929, at which time the town began to decline, The town also suffered several disastrous fires from which it never recovered, but at its peak, Derma boasted two churches, fourteen stores, and an Agricultural High School.

About four miles southeast of Derma is the site of the boyhood home of Fox Conner who was promoted to the rank of Major General by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During World War I, Fox Conner was General Perishing’s fight hand man, and Perishing once stated that Fox Conner did more to help win the war than any one man he knew.

ELLARD

Located six miles northwest of Pittsboro,

ELZY

Settlers first came to this site, three miles north of Vardaman, in the 1840!s, and called the settlement Cherryhill. The place was later named Elzy, supposedly for B.M. Elzy an early merchant. A post office was established here in the mid 1850’s and was in operation until 1905. The village began its decline when the railroad was built through three miles to the north, and the railroad accommodations attracted most of the residents to Vardaman,

HARDIN TOWN

Hardin Town was established and named by Johnnie Hardin who came to this site, four miles east of Calhoun City, in 1845. The place also seems to have been known as Hopewell, since the post office, which was in operation from 1880 until 1903, and the school was known as Hopewell. Hardin Town was never much more than a one store settlement, and that became extinct during the depression of 1929.

HARTFORD

The extinct town of Hartford is historic in the fact that it was the first county seat of Calhoun County. Established in 1830, Hartford served as the seat of government from January until July of 1852, at which time Pittsboro, four miles to the southwest, was selected as the permanent county seat. Martin Murphree, Grandfather of Dennis Murphree, was one of the first settlers in this section, coming in 1835. A few years later Hartford had become a thriving trade center, with a furniture and jug factory being operated by 0. K. Bennet in the early 1840’s. Soon after the establishment of the county seat at Pittsboro, the town of Hartford began to decline, and by 1886 was an extinct village.

HOLLIS

Prior to 1860, Alexander Hollis and his brother, Marvin V. Hollis settled in this locality, three miles east of Derma and the place was named for these two brothers. Hollis was no more than a rural community until the building of the railroad in 1905, and it became a flag station. At that time a post office was opened and the town became incorporated in 1910. Hollis prospered for a few years but when the post office was discontinued in 1922 it began to decline. The nearby larger towns drew most of the trade and by 1927 the town was almost extinct.

LOYD

Located eight miles east of Pittsboro, the name origin is uncertain, but it is known that the community was settled before 1860. A post office was established at Loyd following the Civil War and in 1900 there were three stores in operation. The post office was discontinued in 1910 and mail was received from Vardaman.

MABRY

Mabry was a railroad switch located a short distance west of the depot at Derma. The switch served a large planing mill operated by G.C. and I. Mabry of Derma. Mabry became extinct with the abolishment of the switch in 1939.

PARTEE

Located seven and one-half miles west of Pittsboro,

PITTMAN

Pittman was established as a flag station on the Mississippi and Skuna Valley Railroad, twelve miles west of Bruce. The station was named for Sam Pittman who owned the land where the station was located before it was sold to the Bruce Lumber Company.

REID

It is thought that Young Phillips, who arrived here about 1850, was the first settler in this section, nine miles north of Vardaman, Other early settlers included the Hardins, Campbells, Morgans, and the Reid family, for whom the town was named. A post office had been in operation for several years when a store was opened by Tom Phillips in 1880. Three other stores were eventually built, and Reid enjoyed good business activity until the building of a railroad to the south in 1904. At that time the population began to shift to the railroad, business started to decline, and in 1910, the post office was discontinued.

RETREAT

About 1890, Stewart Warner opened a merchantile store near his home, ten miles northwest of Calhoun City, and in time, the settlement gained a post office which was named Retreat. Within a few years the post office was discontinued, and at that time the business of Stewart Warner was closed and Warner moved to Big Creek.

SABOUGLA

This settlement, located eleven miles southwest of Calhoun City, was first known as Davis Town, for J.W. Davis, who settled near here in the 1830’s. About 1880 when & post office was granted, the community was given the name, Sabougla for the creek on which it is located.

SAREPTA

Located eleven miles northeast of Bruce, it is thought that John Hellum was the first settler, coming in 1836 from Tennessee and acquired land a few miles north of the present site of Sarepta. Dr. Andrew Roane, son of Governor Archibald Roane of Tennessee, settled here in 1840 and at that time there was one store which was operated by a man named McLarty.

There is a story told of a happening in Sarepta, when in the 1880’s the backwoodsmen of the area had the habit of coming to town and taking the law in their own hands. It seems that a government man named Wise came to Mississippi in 1884 in search of a criminal. When he reached Oxford, he was reassigned to locate and arrest two brothers named Dock and Jim Bishop. The two brothers were wanted for the killing of two Harmon boys in a drunken brawl near Sarepta. Jim Bishop was finally located by Wise, who made friends with him, thinking that he could be persuaded to betray his brother. He gave Jim Bishop a bottle of drugged whiskey for his brother, setting a time and place for his capture.

Instead of betraying Dock, Jim betrayed Mr. Wise, and hiding behind a tree they ambushed him, filling him full of buckshot. They then buried him in a shallow grave where he was found a few days later. About three years later Dock Bishop was captured, convicted, and hanged for his crimes. A song, “The Ballad of Dock Bishop,” was then composed by one of the local citizens, and is probably still sung occasionally.

SHEPHERD

Located three and one-half miles northwest of Pittsboro,

SKUNA

Located six and one-half miles west of Pittsboro.

SLATE SPRINGS

Located nine miles south of Calhoun City, the place took its name from the springs located west of town on the Slate Springs-Grenada Road. The exact settlement date is uncertain, but it is thought by local people to be older than Pittsboro. If this is true, then Slate Springs could possibly be the oldest settlement in the county. Slate Springs appears to have been a trading center in the early 1800’s. At that time, in addition to the saloons, there were two stores, the first one probably being operated by a man named Woodward. Between 1880 and 1890, a post office, flour mill, and two churches were added. Also, at this time the Fox College was opened, with Fuller Fox as the first teacher.

TRUSTY

This small community, located twelve miles northwest of Sarepta, falls just within the county line. A store, in which was housed the post office, was given the name Trusty, for a local resident. The store as well as the post office have been discontinued, the Trusty family, along with other residents have moved away, and little now remains to mark the site of the settlement.

VANCE

Now listed as being extinct, Vance was located about two miles east of Slate Springs, being named for William Vance, who in 1837 was the first settler. After building a log cabin in 1837, Vance established a water mill on Shulispear Creek for the purpose of grinding grain. In 1844, Vance cleared a plot of ground about 300 yards from his mill on which to erect a larger home. He died before the home was built, and on being buried in the clearing, the spot came to be known as the Vance Graveyard, being used by the community which later sprang up.

For many years wheat as well as corn was ground at the mill, and during the Civil War and Reconstruction, this old mill provided bread for many people. Shulispear Creek was an ideal fishing spot, and people bringing their grain from many miles away would take advantage of the opportunity to camp for several days at a time, fishing and hunting while their grain was being ground. After William Vance’s death his son operated the mill for a few years, then it was sold and operated under the new owners until it was discontinued in 1914.

VARDAMAN

This settlement, four miles east of Derma, was originally known as Ticky Bin, and several stories have been told as to how the name originated. In those days the cattle grazed in the bottom lands where ticks were found, not only on the cattle but on the grass and trees as well. In 1872 a store was opened by Tom Richardson, but the chief industry in this section, especially from 1895 until 1903. was the stave industry. Handhewn staves were made all up and down the Yalobusha and Skuna Rivers, and at the time of the Paris World’s Fair, several staves were sent to the fair and received first prize.

By 1904 the community of Ticky Bin had increased in population and the need of a post office was realized by the citizens. The long hoped for railroad had. been surveyed so a petition was sent to President Theodore Roosevelt for the establishment of a post office to be named Vardaman, in honor of James K. Vardaman. The office was granted but was named Timberville instead of Vardaman as proposed. As the town grew, business firms, schools, and churches were established. The citizens, never satisfied with the name, Timberville, requested and was granted the name change to Vardaman.

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A Lambence from Olympus

Light in August is in many if not most ways Faulkner’s darkest work, dealing with madness, alienation, miscegenation, murder, and sexual mutilation.

The title has inspired a great deal of speculation. Some consider it simply a reference to the onerous sunlight of a Mississippi August; others would have us understand that the title refers to the light cast by Joanna Burden’s burning house.

Then there are careful readers who point to Reverend Hightower’s observation of “how that fading copper light would seem almost audible, like a dying yellow fall of trumpets dying into an interval of silence and waiting” while scholars with a regional bent so note that the phrase “(to be) light in August” is a Southern slang term for pregnancy, concentrating on Lena Grove.

The story that would eventually become the novel, started by Faulkner in 1931, was originally titled “Dark House” and began with Hightower sitting at a dark window in his home. But after a casual remark by his wife Estelle on the quality of the light in August, Faulkner changed the title, and later affirmed this inspiration:

“…in August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and—from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere.

It lasts just for a day or two, then it’s gone…the title reminded me of that time, of a luminosity older than our Christian civilization.”

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Pearl River Revitalization: Two Lakes Still Stinks

This article, written well over a decade ago, contains information that still has relevance as what was once called the LeFleur Lakes project has been resurrected once again by proponents under the name of the Pearl River Revitalization Project.

The Pearl River makes her way from a confluence of sloughy waters in the very heart of Mississippi to the marshy outskirts of the Gulf of Mexico in a graceful 500-mile arc. Lacking the majesty of the Mississippi, the cachet of the Yazoo or the utility of the Tombigbee, the Pearl is often cast as a poor relation; but she has played a significant role in Mississippi history, not the least of which has been putting Jackson on the map. In 1821, state commissioners decided that there was no desirable location within the required 20-mile limits of the geographic center of the state for the new seat of government, so they recommended a site “above the floods” of the Pearl River. In their report to the Legislature, the commissioners recommended the location of the new capital on LeFleur’s Bluff. They also suggested that the town should be laid out in President Jefferson’s design, a checker-board plan that stretched no more than a mile westward from the crest of the bluff where the new capital building would stand.

Initially, the Pearl River served the city as one of its earliest routes to and from civilization. The 1830s were a high water mark in the role of the river as a resource and a reason for the city, but by 1845, rail traffic had been established, and then roads rolled in from all quarters of the compass. Gradually the river fell into abeyance as a platform of commerce for the burgeoning city. But soon the Pearl came to assume a different economic role in the history of Jackson; the bluff could no longer accommodate all of its citizens and buildings began to be erected upon the floodplain. Flooding along the Pearl River in the Jackson area has been a problem since the beginning of the city, but it has been especially noticeable since development has spread into the floodplain. Since then, the river and its urban tributaries have flooded different areas on a periodic basis. Major floods have been classified by their severity according to the frequency at which they are estimated to occur. The 1979 flood has been called a 100-year floodplain event. The 1983 flood was a 50-year event. And the 1991 flood was a 10-year event.  It should not pass without notice that all three of these events occurred within a 12-year period.

Reservoir spillway under construction, c. 1960
Reservoir spillway under construction, c. 1960

Ironically enough, given this catastrophe of riches in terms of water, area leaders were discussing the problems of an adequate drinking water supply for Jackson as early as 1926. One of these leaders was State Senator Mitchell Robinson who succeeded in obtaining a flood control and navigability study from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The study proved unfavorable, but Robinson was persistent. Some dismissed his idea of a dam north of Jackson on the Pearl to provide water and recreation for the city as “Mitch’s ditch,” others warmed to the idea. By 1955, Jackson’s water consumption had increased in excess of five times the rate of 1935 and pollution in the Pearl was a mounting problem. The labyrinth of legal and legislative problems and other obstacles that stood in the way of the construction of the Ross Barnett Reservoir are history now, and the reservoir is a pivotal element in the life of the city. But the Reservoir never was really designed for flood control; it was primarily constructed to create a water supply and to provide recreation. Despite that, the reservoir, because of its very nature as an impoundment of water, plays a crucial role in flood control in the lower river basin. According to Kenneth Griffin, general manager of the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District, the Ross Barnett Reservoir presents special problems in that area.

“One of the challenges, and one of the reasons this reservoir is so difficult to manage for flood control is that you have a huge watershed for this size river, this size of control structure,” Griffin said. “Regrettably, even with perfect hindsight, all you can do is to handle something like a 15- or 20-year event, depending upon when it comes. Certainly you can’t handle a hundred-hear or five-hundred year event,” Griffin added. “1979 was a really terrible flood, and we managed that one with very little in the way of rain gauges and stream gauges. We had manual rain gauges, cooperators that would simply call in the precipitation and we did not have any sophisticated software at that time. And even then, I think the people did a very good job, came very close to doing the best job possible.”

Local attorney Joe Kerley adds this footnote to the construction of the reservoir. “My Dad worked with the US Department of Agriculture, and was involved in the Rivers and Harbors organization. He attended meetings regarding the US Corps of Engineers and other federal and state entities involved in planning the reservoir. Our state could not fund a structure that would adequately control flooding. However, federal funds could have been provided so that the dam would be multi-purpose: flood prevention, drinking water and recreational. However, to obtain federal funding, the reservoir would have to be accessible to all citizens, black and white. Our legislature, as typical of the times, would not agree, and declined federal funding.

“Dad was livid about this,” Kerley said. “He saw the writing on the wall at that time and was sure the reservoir would ultimately accessible to all. There were many discussions about this at home in Hattiesburg, and with like-minded friends. But the legislature would not allow the federal funding, and this many decades we are still trying to figure out how to protect Jackson from the Pearl floods and the inadequate dam at the Rez.”

But even in the case of reservoirs that are designed to control flooding, the use of impoundments for this purpose has been discredited because of their downstream (and upstream) impact. Flood control reservoirs are set at a specific area in a drainage system to control flooding in an immediate area, but reservoirs impact rivers both above and below their dams. The LeFleur Lakes project is such an impoundment proposal intended to solve the flooding problems in the Jackson area in such a manner that “the attractiveness and growth potential of the metropolitan area would also be enhanced.” The proposal states that flood levels would be permanently lowered in the Jackson-to-Byram area by providing a better flow course for the passage of water and by reducing the rate of flow in the river and envisions the creation of a vital new waterfront district for the Jackson Metropolitan area.

Under the LeFleur Lakes proposal, large amounts of sand from beneath the numerous railroad and highway structures south of downtown Jackson would be excavated. This would be needed in order to provide the proper flow course through this area of the river. The study proposal maintains that existing levees and bridges presently block the river’s flow and back water up into Jackson homes and businesses. To accommodate the excavated material, the Flowood levee would be moved to the east and the dredged material would then be put in the middle of the newly formed lake. This would create a 600-acre island opposite downtown Jackson. North of Lakeland the dredged material would be placed on the east side of the newly formed lake. The newly-created land, an artificial island in the middle of the Pearl near where an extended High Street would stretch, would be accessed by bridges and by constructing interchanges of parkways and city streets over it and along the entire length of the 3000 acre lake. The LeFleur Lakes proposal states that “many roads and bridges are needed at this time to alleviate the metropolitan area’s traffic congestion,” and that both the traffic and flooding problems can be solved simultaneously and at less cost than plans for previous flood control, roads and bridges. The proposal also says that all the structures that flooded in the 1979 flood should be protected from another 100-year flood by the new lake and the improved reservoir discharge procedure. Additionally, the plan would provide that surveying be conducted in order to determine what structures exist in the various flood prone areas that would not be protected from a so-called 100-year flood. If any structures exist that need protection, auxiliary plans would be considered and, if warranted, additional protection would be extended to those structures.

The LeFleur Lakes plan would accelerate the flow course for the river by removing the trees from the very lowest level of the river floodplain (the river bottom land). This level would then be lowered another 5 feet with dredges and other earth-moving equipment, and then the entire 11-mile river course opposite Jackson would be made into a permanent lake. This lake would be necessary to prevent the redistribution of sand and silt and to prevent the regrowth of trees in the river flow course.  Naturally, the Ross Barnett Reservoir would play a key role in the project’s success. According to Griffin, “The LeFleur Lakes plan includes two components. Obviously, the lakes themselves are proposed. But the other half of the plan involves some major operational plans in how the (current) reservoir is operated, specifically how the gates are operated.” LeFleur Lakes admits to other drawbacks, as well.  For instance, under the proposal, levels in the Ross Barnett Reservoir, on two or three occasions each year, over a period of a day and a half, will fall one foot then rise again to their original level. According to the original Two Lakes website (now defunct), “Once every 25 years they (“Reservoir people”) would be warned to untie moorings and move boats because the level will be taken down below 295 feet. On the positive side, they would enjoy an extra one half to one foot of water in their boat slips” and “would be compensated by knowing that two thousand of their neighbors will never have to worry about their homes and businesses flooding again.”  In addition, metal buildings at very low elevations would not be protected from another 1979 flood, but they would be compensated by “having protection from a 100-year flood on structures that probably will not last 100 years.” People who own land and camps on the river south of Jackson would experience “one or two” river bottom floods that they would not have had otherwise, but they would be compensated by the assurance that the new reservoir would have the capacity to take one foot of elevation off of every major flood that could occur in the area. “One foot off of the 1979 flood would have prevented much of the flooding that these people’s neighbors suffered in 1979.”

Supporters of LeFleur Lakes cite the need some sort of flood control and the availability of direct funding for a local agency to undertake the project. Federal commitment to flood control in the Jackson area does exist; otherwise the Corps would not have sought funding for a more thorough and inclusive system of levees, a proposal now called the Comprehensive Levee System of 1996. In April, 1988 the Pearl River Basin Development District asked the Corps of Engineers to initiate alternative flood control studies. The Corps received authorization and funding in February 1989. Federal funds were used for the reconnaissance study which was completed in June 1990. The District agreed to serve as local sponsor for the study for the Jackson Metro area, which took 54 months to complete and cost $3 million. The District provided one-half of this amount in cash and in-kind contributions. A feasibility cost-sharing agreement was signed in September 1991, and feasibility studies were initiated in October of the same year.

The Pearl River Feasibility Flood Control Study (a.k.a. the Comprehensive Levee Plan) was completed by the Corps of Engineers in February 1996. The Corps recommended the construction of 21 miles of new levees at a cost of $122 million. The local sponsor would be required to provide $38 million for the acquisition of land, easements, rights-of-way, relocations and disposal areas. Legislation enabling the Pearl River Basin Development District to serve as the local sponsor for the Flood Control Project was defeated in the 1995 and 1996 sessions of the Mississippi Legislature.  The plan also included $30 million worth of recreation amenities and improvements, most of which would have been cost shared. Even before then, in 1984, the Corps also proposed a dry dam that would catch heavy flows from extreme rainfall events in the upper basin, events similar to those which caused the ’79 and ’83 floods. Called the Shoccoe Dam to be installed near Carthage, it was planned at a cost of $80.1 million ($24 million shared). It was identified by the Corps of Engineers as the most comprehensive flood control project for the Pearl Basin. But in October, 1984, the Mississippi House of Representatives defeated a bill authorizing the District to serve as the local sponsor for Shoccoe.  Local opposition killed the funding measure, but many people still consider Shoccoe to be the best plan for flood control in the middle reaches of the Pearl.

Everybody has their favorite proposals. “As far as we know, the Comprehensive Levee System (proposed by the Corps) is still viable, but we’ll have to evaluate it again,” Walker said. “We will have to see if the levee alignment is still in place, and we’ll have to see if any development has gotten in the alignment and we’ll have to adjust it.”

“What we’re looking at are the levees and LeFleur Lakes. It’s probable that LeFleur Lakes might turn out different than what it is now. The final result might be some combination of lakes and the levee system. We have several of what we call milestones that we’ll reach as we go through the study. We’ll discuss these with the sponsors, since these will be decision points where we’ll decide whether we need to go forward or not. If we get to the point that something showed up as a “show-stopper,” we would have to evaluate with the Levee Board at that time whether we want to proceed with that plan or do something else. But we could not proceed without them being agreeable to that. There is a consensus that something needs to be done, but the question is what the plan is on how to control it. Public opinion is such that something is needed to control flooding, but we don’t know what the plan is. As to other proposals, as we go through the process, a sponsor will have to sponsor a study for other alternatives. With the proper sponsorship, other plans could be submitted.”

* * * * * * * * * *

The Pearl River Basin covers an area of about 7,800 square miles, comprising about 16 per cent of the state as a whole. From Neshoba County, the river flows southwesterly, eventually forming the boundary between Louisiana and Mississippi in the southern part of the basin and discharging into the Gulf of Mexico just north of New Orleans. Before the Pearl reaches the Gulf from Jackson, it still traverses some two hundred plus miles, and the lands along the lower river have already felt the impacts of impoundment and flood control in the Jackson Metro area. One of the most serious effects is that of bank erosion, which has been a crucial and continual problem since the development of the state. Andrew Whitehurst, a wildlife ecologist with the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, is the author of the newly-published Mississippi Streamside Handbook, available as a free download from the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks website. Whitehurst said that rivers are able to carry a great amount of sediment. But when a stream goes into a reservoir, it slows down and the energy of the water is dissipated. Much of the suspended material it carries drops out, and the water leaves the reservoir sediment-starved.

“A normal river will gather a suspended load from its bed and from whatever flows in from its tributaries and through normal bank erosion and moving sand bars around,” Whitehurst said. “Our river (the Pearl) is altered. The fact that the discharges can be abruptly stopped after a flood event makes the levels go up and down, so the banks become saturated during floods and when the water is quickly shut off and the level of the river channel drops, the banks can slough or heave.” Whitehurst points out that there are three well-known diadromous (migratory salt-to-freshwater) species that will be impacted by the dams: the American eel, the Alabama shad and the Gulf sturgeon. The maritime connection of the Pearl is another crucial element when flood control anywhere along the river is under consideration, since the wetlands that lie near the mouth of the Pearl are important to the seafood industries along the central Gulf.  In a public hearing in Biloxi on March 11, coastal residents expressed concerns that LeFleur Lakes would damage the Coast, especially in terms of the area’s seafood industry. Gulf citizens were particularly worried that the project would reduce the amount of fresh water flowing into the Mississippi Sound, degrading its oyster beds and shrimp population.  Lauren Thompson, of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, said, “Our concern is with reduced or increased salinity as well as with sediment and nutrient transport down the Pearl River. The reduced flow of nutrients and sediments down the Pearl can change the environmental conditions in the Mississippi Sound, affecting salinity and water quality.

“So it could have a negative impact on oysters, shrimp, blue crabs and finfish. Oysters, which can’t move, have a narrow salinity band. If the salinity is too high, predators come in; if the salinity is too low, the oysters close up, and if they stay closed for an extended period of time, they die.” Since the Pearl empties into the Gulf just north of New Orleans, the State of Louisiana is also keeping an eye on flood control along the river, as it will impact their seafood industry as well as salinity levels in LakePontchartrain.

The Pearl River levee system.

Apart from the Reservoir, flood control in the Jackson area is also managed by a system of levees built by the Corps of Engineers in the 1960s. These levees serve as buffers for the floodwaters and also funnel the flood downstream. Aside from emergency situations, the levees are largely maintained by local interests. Periodic inspections of maintenance are made by personnel from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and from local levee and drainage districts, in this case the Rankin Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District, also known locally as the Levee Board.  This board has been given broad powers to deal with flood control along the Pearl River in Rankin and Hinds Counties. The board is made up of the mayors of Richland, Pearl, Jackson and Flowood as well as the head of the Mississippi Development Authority, Leland Speed, in his role as representative of the Mississippi State Fair Commission. Robert Stockett Jr. represents Hinds County, and the chair, Billy Orr, represents Rankin County. The board itself is funded by the Boards of Supervisors of Rankin and Hinds Counties.

There are fourteen miles of levees in the Jackson area that protect flood lands in Flowood, practically all of Pearl and those in Richland. They also protect those lands below the bluff around the fairgrounds on the Hinds County side of the river. The levee board has taxing power on property that is protected by the levees. If you own a business or property that is protected by a levee, then you are taxed by the Board to help pay for the maintenance of the levees as well as pump maintenance and levee patrols during flood times. The tax revenue brought in by the Board totals less than a half million dollars. The Corps and the Levee Board have agreed to initiate a three-year, $2.8 million feasibility study that will be limited to updating the cost of the 1996 levee plan and a complete analysis of the LeFleur Lakes Plan. “We don’t have a set schedule for reviewing the progress of the analysis,” Orr said, “We have other things to do, but the Corps will be on it daily and we’ll keep up with it very often. We do keep up to date on it, and it is our responsibility to make sure it goes right. Whatever the requirements are as these studies go along, we will meet as often as necessary.” Orr said that they follow the Corps’s recommendations in matters of maintaining the levees and that while some people might claim that they are more partial to one flood control plan over the other, “We will be partial to LeFleur Lakes only when it has been studied and it has been proven that it can do the job.”

The decision to put the LeFleur Lakes Plan in the hands of the Levee Board was made by the three county governments of Rankin, Hinds and Madison Counties as well as the governing bodies of eleven cities in the three county areas. Purportedly, they will expand the district and build some version of the project. The levees will be incorporated into the LeFleur Lakes strategy, since the levees were part of the original “Two Lakes” plan.  According to Gary Walker, project manager for the Corps of Engineers, “The EIS (environment impact statement) draft (for LeFleur Lakes) is scheduled for October, 2005 and it will take about six months after that for the final. The recommendation will be a joint process between us and the sponsor,” Walker said. “It will be a plan we both can agree on, it will be a joint recommendation between us and the Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District. We’re doing a full evaluation and the study will determine how we assess the project. We’re not going to make any pre-determined notions. The study will speak for itself.”

As to alternatives to LeFleur Lakes and the comprehensive levee plans, no others are under consideration, since Walker said that the Corps can’t recommend anything without a sponsor. But “assuming we went through the process and found a feasible plan and a sponsor, yes, we could approve (an alternative).”

“People ask how long it will be before a flood control plan will be put into place,” Orr said. “But we don’t know how long it will take. The study itself is going to take two and a half years. After that, it would be left up to funds that are available, and this project (LeFleur Lakes) is big. Now, it might not come to anything, because environmental concerns might knock it down or something else like public sentiment or lack of funding might come into play. The only thing I can say is that this board would like for the LeFleur Lakes project to be a reality if it does the job in controlling flooding. The only thing we’re interested in is flooding. Economic development and all the other factors do not interest us. Our job is flood control, and if this project does not meet the required specifications, it will be gone. I’m sure there’s room for modification,” Orr said. “With all the study and money going into this, we hope something will come out of it that will work. The only thing for sure is that Rankin and Hinds Counties need some flood control assistance somewhere. I was head of the Fair Commission in 1979 during the Easter Flood and we lost over $2.5 million, and that’s a lot of money.”

* * * * * * * * * *

In the final analysis, until people begin to perceive of the Pearl as a resource rather than as an obstacle, LeFleur Lakes, or some similar project involving development along the river that will control flooding and perhaps create revenue, will continue to receive a lot of support in the Jackson Metro area. But we do have other choices. Metro Jackson can either preserve the riverfront with options that have the potential to appeal to a younger, more aggressive entrepreneurial population while continuing to promote more downtown development, or the city can align itself with political and business leaders who seek to develop the riverfront at great expense and create a new district that will in all likelihood fail within the next decade or so, benefiting nobody save those who developed (or dredged up) the property in the first place. Supporters say the LeFleur Lakes idea is just a different approach from the levees, one which has the economic development and recreational components that levees just don’t have. They also cite the support of local governments, state agencies and the congressional delegation. John McGowan, the Jackson entrepreneur who originally conceived of the LeFleur Lakes (then called Two Lakes) plan, declined to comment on the evaluation in a telephone interview and deferred comments on the project to the Levee Board.

Detractors of LeFleur Lakes tend to focus on the negative environmental impact the project will have, but not necessarily in the sense that it will endanger already threatened species of wildlife. These detractors cite numerous studies showing that in addition to education and other quality-of-life issues, aesthetics and recreation are important to young entrepreneurs, especially younger business owners who are looking to relocate. They point out that LeFleur Lakes is going to destroy the wetlands and natural resources that are in the corridor, the same resources that in other parts of the country, smaller urban areas use to provide green space for recreational opportunities that appeal to people oriented towards activities carried out in natural settings, like hiking, biking, jogging and nature viewing.

Pearl River swampland

These critics feel that the LeFleur Lakes project is simply not progressive enough and does not address the changing demographics and mindset of the 21st century South. In this context, the controversy surrounding LeFleur Lakes becomes a conflict of perception about the way Jackson should move, about the best venues that the city can take in order to become a more vibrant community rather than a battle between tree cutters and tree huggers.  As an alternative to both LeFleur Lakes and the comprehensive levee system (which unlike LeFleur Lakes included green space facilities), proponents of green space, who include local businessmen as well as conservationists, are proposing a greenway that will transform what is now a denuded floodplain into an area that will feature hiking, biking and jogging trails, parks with sports fields and playgrounds, a scenic river corridor for boating as well as wilderness areas. Jackson geologist Dan Hill is among those who maintain that the greenway proposal has the potential to increase city revenue by attracting young professionals and entrepreneurs who look for such things as aesthetics and outdoor recreational activities when seeking to relocate.  “The Levee Board has denuded the area between the levees to improve the convenience of the flood waters out of the flood zone,” Hill said. “The Levee Board maintains the levees and the floodways such as the areas at Lakeland and I-20. They clear the floodways rather than do any aesthetic features and it’s ugly.”

“When you clear the trees away from the river, there are no roots to hold the banks,” Hill said. “The reason they clear the trees is that those trees and vegetation create a drag on the water going through, so what they do is straighten up and dredge the channel as it has been along I-55. That improves the passage of water. One of the things that the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks didn’t like was the clearings in the 1996 plan, which would have increased the number of clearings. It’s ugly; it looks like a moonscape going across I-20. And this creates a negative impression about Jackson.”

The greenway proposal is problematic because it can’t control flooding along the river and has limited appeal for those who are unaccustomed to more nature-oriented forms of activity (biking, hiking, kayaking, etc.) and are more acclimated to the hustle and bustle of a more people-oriented environment; shopping malls, for instance.  But the environmental issues are still crucial. Water quality is a primary concern. According to Jackson businessman Jerry Litton, “If you look at the area that will be draining into LeFleur Lakes and look at the trash and debris that flushes from the city every time we have a rain, that is what the water in those lakes is going to look like.”

“Debris will collect on the edges of the lake, or collect on drifts that are out in the open or on the edges of the (proposed) island,” Litton said. “It’s going to be there, and somebody’s going to have to float around in a boat in a net and dredge it out, all of the stuff that comes down from the spillway itself, plus what flushes out of the creeks in the city.” Nonpoint pollution is also a consideration. Nonpoint pollution is source pollution, or “polluted runoff,” created when rain, irrigation and other water sources run over the land, picking up pollutants and transporting them to local water bodies. You’re going to hold water there in a large volume, and you’re going to have all the nonpoint pollutants that come from the city. Nonpoint sources are parking lots and roadways and fields. Then what about all the motor oil, paint and paint thinners that people won’t take the time to take to the toxic waste centers? It’s being poured down storm drains.”

Hill agrees. “The shallowness of the proposed reservoirs (LeFleur Lakes) is such that water temperature is going to heat up and that’s going to affect water quality. Not only that, but when they impound the lake they’re going to flood one landfill that I know of, and there’s probably a second landfill. I found out when they tore down the old Baptist hospital, they put the asbestos from that in a fill that would be flooded.”  Sewer mains are another concern for the LeFleur Lakes project. Broken sewer mains would flow directly into the lake from the city. One such sewer is the West Main Intercept, which drains north Jackson and travels through the floodway. The construction of a lake in the floodplain opposite Jackson would put that sewer main underneath the lake itself. Environmental issues aside, when it comes to local sentiment, the LeFleur Lakes proposal appeals to a genuine need for the people of Jackson to feel as if they are living in a vibrant, growing community that is making changes and improvements. In addition to the attractions of proposed flood control and potential economic benefits, LeFleur Lakes has come to represent an alternative to apparently ineffective downtown development. Granted, LeFleur Lakes appeals more to the outlying metro area than it does to the city itself; on the surface, the project has much greater appeal for those sections of Ridgeland, Hinds and Rankin Counties between the spillway and Byram, but it still has its supporters in the city itself, not the least of which is former Jackson mayor Harvey Johnson Jr.

“The continuing flooding we experience nearly every year undeniably demonstrates that we very much need a comprehensive flood protection plan,” Johnson said. “As a member of the Rankin-Hinds Levee Board, I work closely with mayors from Rankin County and other board members to address ongoing flood control measures.”

“The public has rallied around the LeFleur Lakes project as an alternative to levees. The City of Jackson has gone on record as being in support of the LeFleur Lakes project, and we continue to work closely with federal, state and other local authorities to come up with the right answer to solve our problems with floods. We will continue to evaluate the LeFleur Lakes proposal as it evolves while we decide the best ways to provide flood control,” Johnson added.

“The problem with any development on the Pearl is hydraulics,” Litton adds. “Up to 1959 – 60 the river mostly only rose up to 28 or so feet crest. After the resevoir was built and levees it has gone up to 43 or so feet. Problem with this is it does not go up appreciably in the upper and lower reach as it does here. Why? Levees, reservoir, urban development and the unknow fact, the Pearl has a fifty or so mile long crest when it gets up. Check the data or the 79 floor. From the dam to about Rockport the crest was almost flat at 43 feet. Oddity, no sir, it is the hydrological sequence of hard bottom, forest shouldered edges, a narrow girth and the necessity for the river to get up this high to push the water through.”

But according to Matthew Dalbey, assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Jackson State University, “From a physical planning point or perspective, when you have an interstate between a new development project and downtown, I don’t see how that is going to help downtown. As a matter of fact, I think it’s going to make downtown dead. It’s just too big of a separation; it’s just like any other type of leap-frog development or urban sprawl. The people who argue for this will say that any new development within the boundaries of the city will provide a positive economic impact, but the issue remains that the new development will be separate from the old development. It will kill downtown because of the separation. I think that there’s a tendency to support new development by local people, so for instance you can get a premium rate for something new whether it’s strategically located or not. In other words, there’s nothing new downtown, so people aren’t investing downtown, but take the Fondren Corner building; it’s a redone building in an area that had formerly been in decline,” Dalbey said. “But the new investment in that place has been such that they can get a premium on the rents there. As a matter of fact, Fondren is in a rebound, and people like being there.”

Of course, it’s questionable whether LeFleur Lakes, or any such new development district will improve the local economy. Some people are of the opinion that the city has extended itself already and that further development is superfluous; after all, the state economy is drawing back, consolidating itself and trimming edges, so it makes sense that the capital city should follow suit.  Under scrutiny, LeFleur Lakes appears to be an antiquated development concept that creates more problems both in Jackson and downstream than it solves. Jackson deserves a solution to flooding that is effective and progressive, one that focuses on enduring issues rather than quick-fix alternatives.  We need protect ourselves, but we need to take care of our river, too; after all, she’s why we’re here in the first place.