Cotton Gin Port Site | |
 Historical Marker at the Cotton Gin Port Site | |
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| Nearest city | Amory, Mississippi |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 33°58′15″N88°32′35″W / 33.97083°N 88.54306°W |
| Area | 100 acres (40 ha) |
| NRHP reference No. | 72000700 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | October 18, 1972 |
Cotton Gin Port is a ghost town in Monroe County, Mississippi, United States.
Cotton Gin Port was located at 33°58′15″N88°32′35″W / 33.97083°N 88.54306°W on the east bank of the Tombigbee river. [2]
Cotton Gin Port was the first town settled by Europeans in what became north Mississippi. It was developed on the east bank of the Tombigbee River, at a crossing of vital Indian trails. This had been a base of expeditions of French explorers Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1736 and Vaudreuil in 1752.
After the United States acquired the territory, it was first considered part of Marion County in the Alabama Territory. [3]
The new demarcation lines of 1820-21 established a state boundary that allocated the town and related area to Mississippi.
The early U.S. government built a cotton gin in 1801 at Cotton Gin Port as part of a "plan of civilization" for the local Chickasaw, whom it wanted to have adopt European-American customs. The settlement soon became recognized as a trading post for business with the Chickasaw. A road, Gaines Trace, was built to the town in 1811 and 1812. This road ran from close to present-day Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River to Cotton Gin Port, where it crossed the Tombigbee. From there it continued south to Fort Stoddert, Alabama.
As railroads were constructed in the region, the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham Railroad bypassed Cotton Gin Port, and established a new railroad town at Amory, Mississippi. In a pattern repeated in numerous other places, this bypass resulted in the older town being abandoned, as businesses and residents moved to have access to the railroad at Amory.
The ruins of the old town can still be found between the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Tombigbee River. Relics from the former settlement can be seen at the Amory Municipal Museum. Levi Colbert, a chief of the Chickasaw, is said to have lived on the bluff west of Cotton Gin Port, near a large spreading oak known as the council tree, a meeting place for tribal elders. The former cotton gin was built near here. [4]
Marion County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census the population was 29,341. The county seat is Hamilton. The county was created by an act of the Alabama Territorial General Assembly on February 13, 1818. The county seat was originally established in Pikeville in 1820, and moved to Hamilton in 1881. The county was named by planter and US Indian agent John Dabney Terrell, Sr., in recognition of General Francis Marion of South Carolina.
Monroe County is a county on the northeast border of the U.S. state of Mississippi next to Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 34,180. Its county seat is Aberdeen.
Epes is a town in Sumter County, Alabama, United States. Initially called Epes Station, it was incorporated as Epes in 1899. At the 2010 census the population was 192, down from 206 in 2000.
Okolona is a city in and one of the two county seats of Chickasaw County, Mississippi, United States. It is located near the eastern border of the county. The population was 2,692 at the 2010 census. It had a large furniture industry and the Wilson Park resort.
Amory is a city in Monroe County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 6,666 at the 2020 census, down from 7,316 at the 2010 census. Located in the northeastern part of the state near the Alabama border, it was founded in 1887 as a railroad town by the Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham Railroad. As a result, Cotton Gin Port, along the Tombigbee River to the east, was abandoned as businesses and people moved for railroad access.
Smithville is a town in Monroe County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 509 at the 2020 census.
The Tombigbee River is a tributary of the Mobile River, approximately 200 mi (325 km) long, in the U.S. states of Mississippi and Alabama. Together with the Alabama, it merges to form the short Mobile River before the latter empties into Mobile Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. The Tombigbee watershed encompasses much of the rural coastal plain of western Alabama and northeastern Mississippi, flowing generally southward. The river provides one of the principal routes of commercial navigation in the southern United States, as it is navigable along much of its length through locks and connected in its upper reaches to the Tennessee River via the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.
High Falls State Park is a 1,050-acre (4.2 km2) state park located near the city of Jackson in Monroe County, Georgia. It is the site of a prosperous 19th-century industrial center, which became a ghost town when it was bypassed by the railroad. The park contains the largest waterfall in middle Georgia and a 650-acre (2.6 km2) lake.
The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway is a 234-mile (377 km) artificial U.S. waterway built in the 20th century from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway links commercial navigation from the nation's midsection to the Gulf of Mexico. The major features of the waterway are 234 miles (377 km) of navigation channels, a 175-foot-deep (53 m) cut between the watersheds of the Tombigbee and Tennessee rivers, and ten locks and dams. The locks are 9 by 110 by 600 feet, the same dimension as those on the Mississippi above Lock and Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois. Under construction for 12 years by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway was completed in December 1984 at a total cost of nearly $2 billion.
Mississippi Highway 6 (MS 6) runs east–west from MS 161 in Lyon, east to MS 25 near Amory. It travels approximately 139 miles (224 km), serving Coahoma, Quitman, Panola, Lafayette, Pontotoc, Lee, and Monroe Counties. West of Tupelo, it is concurrent with US 278. Points of interest along the route include the University of Mississippi, Trace State Park, Natchez Trace Parkway, the Elvis Presley Birthplace, and Tombigbee State Park.
The Gaines Trace was a road in the Mississippi Territory. It was constructed in 1811 and 1812 from the Tennessee River to Cotton Gin Port on the upper Tombigbee River and on to Fort Stoddert on the lower Tombigbee. The portion from the Tennessee River to Cotton Gin Port was surveyed in 1807 and 1808 by Edmund P. Gaines, the road's namesake and a career United States Army officer.
The Buttahatchee River is a tributary of the Tombigbee River, about 125 miles (201 km) long, in northwestern Alabama and northeastern Mississippi in the United States. Via the Tombigbee River, it is part of the watershed of the Mobile River, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico.
Camargo is a ghost town in Monroe County, Mississippi, United States. Once a thriving river port, Camargo declined following the completion of a nearby railway.
Levi Colbert (1759–1834), also known as Itawamba in Chickasaw, was a leader and chief of the Chickasaw nation. Colbert was called Itte-wamba Mingo, meaning bench chief. He and his brother George Colbert were prominent interpreters and negotiators with United States negotiators in the early decades of the 19th century. They were appointed by President Andrew Jackson's administration to gain cession of their lands and arrange for removal of their people to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. They were under considerable pressure from the Mississippi state government, white interlopers in their area, and the federal government to cede their lands.
Vienna is an unincorporated community about 6 miles from Mississippi in Pickens County, Alabama, United States. It was a prosperous river port from the 1830s until the American Civil War, situated along the eastern shore of the Tombigbee River on the southwestern border of the county. It declined rapidly in importance with the building of a railroad through Pickens County following the war. In 1917 the post office closed and this marked the end of Vienna's official status as a town.
Claiborne is a ghost town on a bluff above the Alabama River in Monroe County, Alabama.
The Tombigbee District, also known as the Tombigbee, was one of two areas, the other being the Natchez District, that were the first in what was West Florida to be colonized by British subjects from the Thirteen Colonies and elsewhere. This later became the Mississippi Territory as part of the United States. The district was also the first area to be opened to white settlement in what would become the state of Alabama, outside of the French colonial outpost of Mobile on the Gulf Coast. The Tombigbee and Natchez districts were the only areas populated by whites in the Mississippi Territory when it was formed by the United States in 1798.
John Dabney Terrell Sr., surveyor, planter, and politician in Alabama, was born to a planter family in Bedford County, Virginia, and died in Marion County, Alabama. He moved to the region about 1814, well before Indian Removal which began in the 1830s, and served as the United States Indian Agent to the Chickasaw under two presidents. He developed a plantation and was a slaveholder. He became active in territorial and state politics, serving as a state senator and also as a state representative.
Bigbee Valley is an unincorporated community in Noxubee County, Mississippi, United States. Variant names are "Bigbeevale", "Nances Mill", and "Whitehall".
Municipalities and communities of Monroe County, Mississippi, United States | ||
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| Footnotes | ‡This town also has portions in adjacent county or counties | |
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