Mississippi Crazy Laws, Fun Facts and Trivia
Mississippi Crazy Laws
- Promising to marry a woman to seduce her is illegal in Mississippi.
- It is illegal to teach others what pologmy is.
- Houses are not to be within 50 feet of any road.
- In Temperance you may not walk a dog without dressing it in diapers.
- If one is a parent to two illegitimate children that person will go to jail for at least a month.
- In Tylertown it is illegal to shave in the center of Main Street.
- Cattle rustling is punishable by hanging.
- In Oxford, one may not spit on the sidewalk.
- Private citizens may personally arrest any person that disturbs a church service.
- Vagrancy is punishable by either 30 days in jail or a $250 fine.
- One may be fined up to $100 for using profane language in a public place.
- In Brandon it is illegal to attempt to stop someone from walking down the sidewalk by parking a motorhome in their path.
Mississippi Fun Facts and Trivia
- The world's oldest Holiday Inn is in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
- Mrs. Mamie Thomas was the first female rural mail carrier in the United States, using a buggy to deliver mail to the area southeast of Vicksburg in 1914.
- The Mississippi River is the largest in the United States and is the nation's chief waterway. It's nickname is Old Man River.
- Mississippi College in Clinton, was the first co-educational college in the United States to grant a degree to a woman.
- A group of slaves who lived in Mississippi and were freed by their master in 1834 returned to Africa, and created the present-day state of Liberia.
- Dr. Emmette F. Izard of Hazelhurst developed the first fibers of rayon. They became known as the first real synthetics.
- Jimmie Rodgers, from Meridian, Mississippi, known as the Father of Country Music, was the first name placed in the Nashville Country Music Hall of Fame.
- Mississippi was the first state in the nation to have a planned system of junior colleges.
- One of the very oldest games in America is stickball. The Choctaw Indians of Mississippi played the game as far back as 1729, and demonstrations can be seen every July at the Choctaw Indian Fair in Philadelphia.
- The Petrified Forest in Flora, Mississippi is said to be about 36 million years old and is a National Registered Landmark.
- Greenwood is called the Cotton Capital of the World.
- Friendship Cemetery, in Columbus, is known as "the place...where flowers healed a nation." On April 25, 1866 about a year after the Civil War ended, the ladies of Columbus decided to decorate both Confederate and Union graves with bouquets and garlands of flowers. As a direct result of this Americans celebrate what has come to be known as Memorial Day, the annual recognition of our war dead.
- The world's largest cactus plantation is in Edwards.
- Shoes were first sold in boxes in pairs (right foot and left foot) in 1884, in Vicksburg, at Phil Gilberts Shoe Parlor on Washington Street.
- In 1834 Captain Isaac Ross, whose plantation was in Lorman, freed his slaves and arranged for them to be sent to Africa, where they founded the country of Liberia.
- The largest cottonwood plantation in the world is the Filter Plantation in Issaquena County. The plantation is over 20,000 acres.
- Mississippi suffered the largest percentage of people who died in the Civil War of any Confederate State. 78,000 Mississippians enter the Confederate military and by the end of the war 59,000 were either dead or wounded.
- Pine-sol was invented by Harry A. Cole, Sr. of Jackson, Mississippi.
- The world's largest shrimp is on display at the Old Spanish Fort Museum in Pascagoula.
- Vardaman, Mississippi is the sweet potato capital of the world. Every year in November a Sweet Potato Festival is held to celebrate it.
- Natchez is the oldest permanent settlement on the Mississippi. It was settled by the French in 1716.
- The Biedenharn Candy Company Museum, in Vicksburg, commemorates the site where the world famous soft drink, Coca-cola, was first bottled in 1894.
- Casinos in Tunica Mississippi: The Good, the Bad, an...
Learn from our mistakes in Tunica. - The Old Country Church in Rural Mississippi
An old country chapel in rural Mississippi holds many childhood memories of the Fifties. - Bloody Wilson's Creek August 1861
The Battle for Wilson's Creek would take the national focus away from the battlefield at Bull Run which took place a month earlier and give the Confederacy another major victory over Union forces. - The Battle for Pea Ridge March 1862
The Battle of Pea Ridge was the largest land battle west of the Mississippi River it was fought on March 6-8, 1862, on the frozen fields in northwest Arkansas near a rocky outcrop known Pea Ridge. - 11 Places to Visit in Mississippi
Cities and areas to visit and things to do at each stop along the way.
© 2010 Susan Hazelton
