- The Mississippi Gulf Coast, from Biloxi
to Henderson Point, is the largest and longest manmade beach.
- National Geographic is printed by the
Ringier-America company in Corinth.
- The world's only cactus plantation is
located in Edwards with more than 3,000 varieties of cacti.
- Mississippi has more tree farms than any
other state.
- Mississippi has more churches per capita
than any other state.
- Norris Bookbinding Company in Greenwood
is the largest Bible rebinding plant in the nation.
- Dr. Tichenor created Dr. Tichenor's
Antiseptic in Liberty.
- Four cities in the world have been
sanctioned by the International
- Theatre/Dance Committee to host the
International Ballet Competition: Moscow, Russia; Varna, Bulgaria;
Helsinki, Finland; and Jackson, Mississippi.
- David Harrison of Columbus owns the
patent on the "Soft Toilet Seat."
- Over one million are sold every year.
- The first football player on a Wheaties
box was Walter Payton of Columbia.
- The Teddy Bear's name originated after a
bear hunt in Mississippi with President Theodore Roosevelt. President
Roosevelt refused to shoot an exhausted and possibly lame bear. News
of this spread across the country, and a New York merchant capitalized
on this publicity by creating a stuffed bear called "Teddy's
Bear."
- H. T. Merrill of Iuka flew the first
round-trip transoceanic flight in 1928. The flight to England was made
in a plane loaded with ping-pong balls.
- The birthplace of Elvis in Tupelo
includes: a museum, a chapel, and the two-room house in which Elvis
was born.
- The world's oldest Holiday Inn is in
Clarksdale.
- Blazon-Flexible Flyer, Inc., in West
Point, manufactures the best snow sled in the country, the Flexible
Flyer.
- Greenwood is the home of Cotton Row,
which is the second largest cotton exchange in the nation and is on
the National Register of Historic Places.
- Emil and Kelly Mitchell, the King and
Queen of Gypsies, are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian. Since
1915, people from all over the world have left gifts of fruit and
juice at their grave sites.
- The 4-H Club began in Holmes County in
1907.
- The Waterways Experiment Station in
Vicksburg is the largest research, testing, and development facility
of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
- On April 25, 1866, women in Columbus
decorated the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers in Friendship
Cemetery. This gesture became known a Decoration Day, the beginning of
what we observe as Memorial Day.
- Shoes were first sold as pairs in 1884
at Phil Gilbert's Shoe Parlor in Vicksburg.
- Inventor James D. Byrd of Clinton holds
seven patents and developed the plastic used as a heat shield by NASA.
- Mississippi University for Women in
Columbus was the first state college for women in the country,
established in 1884.
- Every commercial airliner has at least
one hydraulic component manufactured by Vickers in Jackson.
- The McCoy Federal Building in Jackson is
the first federal building in the United States named for a Black man.
Dr. A. H. McCoy was a dentist and business leader.
- Hatmaker John B. Stetson learned and
practiced hatmaking in Dunn's Falls.
- The oldest field game in America is
Stickball, played by the Choctaw Indians of Mississippi.
Demonstrations can be seen every July at the Choctaw Indian Fair in
Philadelphia, Mississippi.
- Alcorn State University in Lorman is the
oldest black land grant college in the world.
- The International Checkers Hall of Fame
is in Petal.
- Natchez was settled by the French in
1716 and is the oldest permanent settlement on the Mississippi River.
Natchez once had 500 millionaires, more than any other city except New
York City. Natchez now has more than 500 buildings that are on the
National Register of Historic Places.
- Captain Issac Ross of Lorman freed his
slaves in 1834 and arranged for their passage to the west coast of
Africa. They founded the country of Liberia.
- Oliver Pollock was the largest
individual financial contributor to the American Revolution. He
invented the dollar sign ($). He is buried near Pinckneyville.
- Resin Bowie, the inventor of the Bowie
Knife, is buried in Port Gibson.
- Liberty was the first town in the
country to erect a Confederate monument in 1871.
- The Pass Christian Yacht Club is the
second oldest yacht club in North America, founded in 1849.
- The Mississippi Legislature passed one
of the first laws in 1839 to protect the property rights of married
women.
- The Natchez Trace Parkway, named an
"All American Road" by the federal government, extends from
Natchez to just south of Nashville, Tennessee. The Trace began as an
Indian trail more than 8,000 years ago.
- The Mississippi Delta is the birthplace
of the Blues, music truly original to America.
- The Vicksburg National Cemetery is the
second-largest national cemetery in the country. Arlington National
Cemetery is the largest .
- D'Lo was featured in Life Magazine for
sending proportionally more men to serve in World War II than any
other town of its size; 38 percent of the men who lived in D'Lo
served.
- In 1894, Coca-Cola was first bottled by
Joseph A. Biedenharn in Vicksburg.
- Mississippi was the first state to
outlaw imprisonment of debtors.
- Belzoni is the Catfish Capital of the
World. Approximately 70 percent of the nation's farm-raised catfish
comes from Mississippi.
- The company that makes Icee drinks is
owned by Fred Montalvo from Edwards.
- Peavey Electronics, in Meridian, is the
world's largest manufacturer of musical amplification equipment.
- Proportionally more Mississippians were
killed during the Civil War than from any other Confederate state.
- Serving during Reconstruction, Hiram
Revels was the first Black U.S. Senator.
- The first Parents-Teachers Association
was founded in Crystal Springs.
- Babe Ruth's last home run was hit off a
Mississippian, Guy Bush of Tupelo.
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