The Tupelo journal. (Tupelo, Miss.) 1876-1924, 1906-08-17

located, ana pfanceu Cnelr merry
steeds over the lovely prairies
near it's borders, as they certainly
came in contact with the Chick
asaws in the "Chickasaw old
fields" near here, and were COM
PEELED to pass on to the Missis-
sippi river. This was in the year
1889, so that all probability the
foot of the white man pressed
the soil of this little city over
three hundred and sixty years
ago. What wonderful things De-
Soto and his men saw and heard
in that olden time among the
Chickasaws, God only knows. as
they have left no record of it
telling us Of the trees and forests
swamps and hills, flowers and
birds, wild beasts and poisonous
reptiles; and, while the Indians
made much history they wrote
none
In 1906 when the town of Tupelo
was laid off and plated, the site
of it was in Itawamba county,
the court house being at Fulton,
twenty miles east of Tupelo,
which town was then in one half
mile of the boundary Of Itawam-
ba, and the county itself was
then about forty miles east and
west and thirty miles north and
south. In the year 1860 the
Mobile and Ohio rail road was
rapidly approaching completion
through the western border of
Itawamba county, and the direc-
tory marked a place on their line
for a station where Tupelo is now
located. 1t was thought by many
to be a wild dream of the imag
ination when the old farmer map
makers located a court house lot
on their map. Then the craze
for new country making bad no
place even in the imagination Of
the generality Of the public. and
no one could thelI see any pros
pect Of a court house being built
on the lot designated therefor any
time in the then near future; and
yet, in six years, with a wonder
fully desolating war intervening,
the new county of Lee was or
ganized and Tupelo selected as
the county seat and a courthouse
built on the old farmer map max
er's courthouse lot.
The town of Tupelo was a very
small affair in the beginning OF
it's history. 1t was we'll laid off,
the streets being broad, and cut
ting each other at right angles
north and south and east and
west. Main street is hundred
feet, and Spring, Broadway and
Church Streets eighty feet, while
the others are each sixty feet.
The business portion Of the
town is on Main, Spring, Broad
way, Troy and Court Streets.
When the first business houses
were built in the summer and fall
of 1860, it was thought that the
town would surely cling to the
nearest point of the railroad, and
so those business houses were
placed on what was then called
Front Row, beginning at the north
east corner of Main Street. Some
very nice houses were built there,
and Of the number, one or more,
were two story frame buildings.
But the war between the North
and South came on so rapidly that
those houses were never hlled
with goods. During the war they
were used by the soldiers for bar
racks, or any other purpose for
which they needed them. | oc
cupied them myself as a soldier
as late as 1863. In the late fall
of 1868, and again in 1864 when
the battle Of Harrisburg was
fought, only one mile west OF
the town, the Federal cavalry
raided the town, and at the last
raid burned all these buildings:
In May, 1862, Gen. Bragg fell
back from Corinth, fifty miles
north, to Tupelo, and remained
there till in the early fall, occu-
pying the entire corporate limits
Of the town and much more be-
sides, and the Southern soldiers
destroyed all those beautiful
groves growing on the quarter
section Of land which had been
laid off into lots, and which had
not then been built upon. There
were only six residences stand
ing and occupied during this time
and later on when the Federals
visited the place, and those hous
es with their native forest trees
were saved, and the trees still
adorn. the premises. Outside 81
those places, all the trees now
growing in the town were plantec
subsequently to 1866, and there
are many Of them two and one
half feet in diameter, and Church
Street especially is beautifully
set with fine, shady water oaks,
with an occasional elm. IN the
n ~ = IA ~