Nanachehaw, Mississippi

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1881 post office department map of Nanachehaw, Warren County, Mississippi 1881 post office department map of Nanachehaw Warren County Mississippi.jpg
1881 post office department map of Nanachehaw, Warren County, Mississippi

Nanachehaw is an extinct settlement of Warren County, Mississippi, United States, located in the Walnut Hills near the Big Black River. An alternative name was Allen Station. [1] One folk etymology had it that the name meant "fish hill", [2] [1] but a study of Muskogean language place names states Nanchehaw comes from "nanachiha, a kind of cedar". [3]

History

It was the site of an 18th-century Indian trading post run by Garret Rapalje and his sons. [1] In 1796 George Rapalje made a list in his journal of the kinds of scrap iron abandoned by past settlers that he had found in the vicinity of Nanchehaw. [4] According to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, "Nanachehaw Plantation, originally founded by the Rapalje family, was located on a fairly flat stretch of high ground along the Loosa Chitto, near a place the Choctaw called 'Nanachehaw'...Eventually, the plantation was managed by the Charles Allen family in the 1850s and 1860s...In 1860, the Nanachehaw plantation consisted of at least 793 acres, producing both cotton and corn and used the labor of 113 enslaved persons, including 38 children, throughout the plantation as field hands, loggers, carpenters, cooks, nurses, and others." [5] Nanachehaw plantation was offered for rent after the American Civil War. [6] Nanachehaw post office opened in 1881 along the Mississippi Valley and Ship Island Railroad with a postmaster named C. B. Allen. [7]

The road to Allen was off U.S. Route 61 at Yokena. [8] Several of the deaths from a "midnight cyclone" that was part of the tornado outbreak of June 5–6, 1916 were on the road between Yokena and Nanachehaw. [9] The town eventually had "two hotels, one for white and one for black, several stores and numerous houses and a school served the bustling settlement". [1] The major industry was the Allen Cooperate Compay, which employed "several hundred workers on the payroll at the sawmill, stave mill, and veneer plant". [1] Allen Station was a stop on the Illinois Central Railroad and predecessors. The town withered away when the sawmill closed. [10] The Nanachehaw post office closed in 1947. [1] The voting location at Allen's Station was defunct by 1948. [10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "In Southern Warren County: Nanachehaw Was Indian Site, Old Settlement, Sawmill Town". The Vicksburg Post. September 19, 1971. p. 5. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  2. ↑ "Vicksburesque by V.B.R." The Vicksburg Post. January 22, 1934. p. 4. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  3. ↑ Toomey, Thomas Noxon (1917). Proper names from the Muskhogean language. Hervas laboratories of American linguistics. Bulletin 3. St. Louis, Mo., Hervas laboratories. p. 13.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ↑ "George Rapalje's journal a trove of Warren County's Spanish-era history". The Vicksburg Post. March 11, 2001. p. 13. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  5. ↑ "James Allen Plantation Book (Z/0014) | Finding Aids". finding.mdah.ms.gov. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  6. ↑ "A Valuable Plantation for Rent". The Vicksburg Herald. January 25, 1866. p. 3. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  7. ↑ "A new post office". The Vicksburg Herald. May 1, 1881. p. 3. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  8. ↑ "Vicksburesque by V.B.R." The Vicksburg Post. May 21, 1935. p. 4. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  9. ↑ "Disaster Hit Yokena in Midnight Cyclone". The Vicksburg Post. June 29, 1986. p. 5. Retrieved 2026-02-01.
  10. 1 2 "Vicksburesque by V.B.R." The Vicksburg Post. September 10, 1948. p. 4. Retrieved 2026-02-01.


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