At The Crossroads

SPECIAL |

Hattiesburg celebrates 125 years

At the Crossroads Af ter 125 years, all roads - and railroads lead to Hattiesburg’s continued g rowth

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TEXT BY VALERIE WELLS ARTWORK COURTESY HISTORIC HATTIESBURG DOWNTOWN ASSOCIATION The right timing created Hattiesburg 125 years ago. If the timing had been slightly off, the nearby community of Monroe might have become the dominant city in the region instead. “Hattiesburg is a victim of circumstance, a consequence of geography,” said historian Andrew English. He remembers crossing the bridge from Petal into Hattiesburg one day when he was a boy. His father told him this was the spot the Leaf and Bouie rivers came together and that the first name of the community was Twin Forks. The story fascinated English and he started asking why. Through a lifelong pursuit of local history, he discovered Monroe on the other side of the rivers. Soon after the Choctaw Cession of 1830, white Americans started settling the Piney Woods. Just a little northeast of present day Hattiesburg, several veterans of the War of 1812 created the community of Monroe. Close to it was Gen. Andrew Jackson’s famed military road that cut through this area to New Orleans. The memory of the road and the community is still there on Old

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Monroe Road in Forrest County. What Monroe lacked was two railroad lines crossing. The Twin Forks community became Gordon’s Station, a stop along the tracks. It was smaller than Monroe, but a savvy businessman from Meridian had a plan in 1880. William Hardy was sitting under an oak tree near Gordon’s Creek when it hit him like Isaac Newton’s apple that this would be a perfect spot for a city. Perhaps it was more than a dropping acorn that gave him the idea. A city between Gulfport and Jackson could be profitable. “While resting, Captain Hardy spread a map of Mississippi on the ground and studied the surveyed line of the New Orleans and North Eastern Railroad.,“ the Hattiesburg Historical Society says in its literature. “He drew a line through the virgin pine forest and intersected the New Orleans and North Eastern Railroad where the city of Hattiesburg is now located.” The city was founded in 1884. Hardy named it for his wife, Hattie, who never visited the city. Trains and lumber created a bustling economy in Hattiesburg in the late 1800s. It also brought

Old photographs and postcards depict life the way it was in Hattiesburg’s early years. Opposite, the original Hattiesburg High School was built around 1921 on Main Street. The building, which was abandoned years ago after serving as the Hattiesburg School District’s headquarters for years after the new high school was built on Hutchinson Avenue, was gutted by an arsonist’s fire in 2007. The brick shell remains and architect Larry Albert is heading up the city’s effort to rebuild it for use as an arts center with the University of Southern Mississippi. Top left, horses and buggies were the main source of transportation when this photo was taken in front of the M.L. Thompson Sales Stable in 1912. Left, horse-drawn carriages line the unpaved Main Street in this view taken in 1906. Below, the 500 block of Main Street was bustling in the 1940s, with the Kress 5 and dime store on the corner and the Merchants Cafe on the bottom floor of the Bufkin-Cadenhead bulding. The Albert & Associates architectural firm is now located in the renovated building.

Top, traffic was certainly a lot lighter downtown in the late 1920s or early 1930s, as this hand-tinted post card shows. This view of Main Street is looking north from the Front Street intersection. The Kress store and BufkinCadenhead building are on the left. The Sarphie’s jewelry store sign can be seen on a building across the steet. Bottom, Main Street in the early 1900s, looking south from the Pine Street intersection. Note the trolley tracks in the middle of the street. When a portion of North Main Street was dug up and repaved in the 1990s, some of the old tracks were discovered. The tower of Bay Street Presbyterian Church is visible in the distance.

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trouble. It was a wild west town, English contends. Gunfights, murders and illegal activity were rampant. One notorious example was the famous Sullivan-Kilraine fight at Richburg Hill, the last heavyweight bare-knuckle championship in the nation. It was illegal and attracted thousands to Hattiesburg in July 1889. “The crowd was restless and the situation was ugly,” English writes in his new book, “Ringside at Richburg.” “Many fight fans were armed with revolvers and some of the spectators were known toughs from Meridian, New Orleans, St. Louis and Louisville.” Monroe, however, never had such a sensation. Because of the railroads and the timber, Hattiesburg continued to grow. South Mississippi College - now known as William Carey University - opened in 1906. Mississippi Normal College - now called the University of Southern Mississippi opened in 1910. During World War I and World War II, Camp Shelby just south of Hattiesburg became a large training base for soldiers headed overseas. Thousands of National Guard troops from around the United States have trained at Camp Shelby before heading to Iraq in recent years. Beginning in the 1970s, the same decade that saw desegregation in Hattiesburg schools, the city started expanding westward, with dozens of shopping centers and subdivisions popping up in the Oak Grove area. Hattiesburg, the county seat of Forrest County, gradually annexed parts of the city that had leaked over into Lamar County. The main street in town named for Hardy cuts a straight line through town from Gordon’s Creek in downtown to the now annexed portions of Oak Grove. It’s a physical timeline of the city’s development.