Group tours are available by request. Oren Dunn Museum Housed in an old dairy barn, the museum contains more than 3,000 artifacts and historic displays, including Tupelo memorabilia, Elvis keepsakes, a collection of Chickasaw Indian artifacts, and a space museum with an impressive display of space equipment used on NASA moon missions. The space exhibit is complemented by the first Christian flag to orbit the moon, a window and hatch cover from Apollo 14, and a space suit worn on the Apollo 15 moon mission. Located on West Main Street 689 Rutherford Drive in the James L. Ballard Park, the museum exhibits spill onto adjacent grounds with exhibits ranging from a dogtrot cabin dating to 1870, a train depot and caboose, a 1949 bookmobile, and a one room school house. The museum is accessible to the disabled.
Group tours are available by request.
The battle, which raged over two hot July days in 1864, was among the bloodiest in the state. Coming after the Confederate victory at the nearby Battle of Brices Crossroads, the Tupelo engagement pitted troops under Confederate generals Stephen D. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest against Union troops under the command of generals A.J. Smith and Joseph A. Mower. At stake were rail lines supplying General William T. Sherman's campaign against Atlanta. Although the blue clad troops claimed a partial victory, the Union army soon retreated to Memphis, leaving the field to an army half its size. The Tupelo National Battlefield is open daily and maintained by the National Park Service.