Minter City, Mississippi

Minter City is an unincorporated community in Leflore County and Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, United States.<ref>Template:Cite gnis</ref> It is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area, and is within the Mississippi Delta.

Mississippi Highway 8 intersects U.S. Route 49E southwest of Minter City, and the Tallahatchie River flows to the east. The post office on U.S. Route 49E has the ZIP Code 38944.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

The original settlement was known as "Walnut Place Landing" and "Minter City Landing".<ref>Template:Cite gnis</ref>

After traveling down Charley's Trace (also known as the Old Trading Trail), Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto may have crossed the Tallahatchie River near Minter City as his party traveled west in 1541.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1849, James A. Towne bought Template:Convert in the area for 25 cents per acre, and built a log house on the western shore of the river at Minter City. Known as "Uncle Jimmy", Towne supported the local Methodist church, and was known to give each new preacher a wagon and mule.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The "James Minter Ferry", documented in 1868, enabled the crossing of the Tallahatchie River at this site.<ref>Template:Cite gnis</ref>

Minter City became a junction for two railroads, both now abandoned. The Mobile, Jackson and Kansas City Railroad was established in 1890, and the Minter City Southern and Western Railroad, a shortline railroad servicing the sawmills west of Minter City, began operating in 1904. A depot and railroad facilities were erected in Minter City.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The African-American educator William H. Holtzclaw, founder of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute for the Training of Colored Young Men and Young Women (now part of Hinds Community College) in Utica, Mississippi, wrote about his experiences establishing schools for African-Americans in Mississippi in his book The Black Man's Burden, published in 1915. In it, he describes meeting with a wealthy white plantation owner in Minter City to discuss the establishment of a school there:

I believe you are about to engage in a good work, and I would like to see the Negro educated, but, candidly, I do not think that the kind of school you would like to start would do any good in the Delta. I really think it would do harm. What I want here is Negroes who can make cotton, and they don't need education to help them make cotton. I could not use educated Negroes on my place, but since you have asked me for advice, I will tell you candidly that here in the Delta is no place to start a school.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Frank Streater Consolidated School (White) was constructed in Minter City in 1921. The abandoned building burned in 2013.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Minter City was the site of a lynching in 1933. Richard Roscoe, an African-American Baptist deacon and tenant farmer, had been in a physical altercation with the white plantation manager, and both men had been injured. An hour later, Roscoe was abducted, shot dead, and then dragged through the streets of Minter City tied to the back of the sheriff's car.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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  Sign on U.S. Highway 49E celebrating Minter City as the hometown of Lusia Harris
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  Post office
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  Frank Streater Consolidated School

Education

Areas in Leflore County are is in the Greenwood-Leflore School District. Residents are zoned to Amanda Elzy High School.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This area was formerly served by the Leflore County School District.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> T.Y. Fleming Elementary School was in the area,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but it closed in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The editor of the Greenwood Commonwealth criticized the closure.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Effective July 1, 2019 the Leflore district district consolidated into the Greenwood-Leflore School District.<ref>"School District Consolidation in Mississippi Template:Webarchive." Mississippi Professional Educators. December 2016. Retrieved on July 2, 2017. Page 2 (PDF p. 3/6).</ref>

Areas in the Tallahatchie County portion are zoned to the West Tallahatchie School District.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The local schools for West Tallahatchie are R. H. Bearden Elementary School and West Tallahatchie High School. Previously Black Bayou Elementary School in Glendora served southern parts of the West Tallahatchie district.<ref name=MikellWestTallylonger>Template:Cite news - Clipping from Newspapers.com.</ref> The district decided to close Black Bayou in 1998.<ref name=WestTallyLaunch1998>Template:Cite news - Clipping from Newspapers.com.</ref> Previously West District Middle School (now Bearden) served as a middle school for the West Tallahatchie area.<ref name=MikellWestTallylonger/>

Mississippi Delta Community College is the designated community college for Leflore County.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Coahoma Community College is the designated community college for Tallahatchie County.<ref>"Student Residency" (Archive). Coahoma Community College. Retrieved on July 8, 2017. "Out-of-District Resident: A student who does not live within Bolivar, Coahoma, Quitman, Tallahatchie, and Tunica Counties but does live in some other county in Mississippi."</ref>

In popular culture

• Richard Ford references Minter City in his 1996 novel Independence Day.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Notable people

• L.C. Green, blues guitarist.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Lusia Harris, Olympic silver medalist and All American basketball player.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• M. Carl Holman, author, poet and playwright.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Kemp Malone, linguist and literary scholar.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Solomon Osborne, member of the Mississippi House of Representatives<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Homer Spragins, former pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

External links

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