Themed Photo Gallery and Information: Greenville, Mississippi
History
Greenville is a city in, and the county seat of, Washington County, Mississippi. The population was 34,400 at the 2010 census. It is located in the area of historic cotton plantations and culture known as the Mississippi Delta.
This area was occupied by indigenous peoples when explored by the French, who established a colony at Natchez, Mississippi, the home of the historic Natchez people, and later European-American colonists. The United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, and forced most of the Southeastern tribes to Indian Territory during the following decade.
Greenville was founded in 1824 by William W. Blanton, who filed for land from the United States government. He was granted section four, township eighteen, range eight west. This plot now constitutes most of downtown Greenville.
Greenville became the county seat in 1844. The two previous county seats, New Mexico and Princeton, had both caved into the Mississippi River.
The current city of Greenville is the third in the State to bear the name. The first, located to the south near Natchez, became defunct soon after the American Revolution as European-American settlement was concentrated to the east.
The second is the parent city to the present one and was settled in the early 19th century. It was named by its founders for General Nathanael Greene, beloved friend of George Washington, for whom the county was named. This Greenville was located three miles from the present site. Today it is the site of the city’s industrial fill. The second town was a thriving hamlet in the days before the Civil War. As county seat, it was the trading, business, and cultural center for the large cotton plantations that surrounded it. Most plantations were located directly on the Mississippi and other major navigable tributaries. The interior bottomlands were not developed until after the war.
The town was destroyed during the Union Army’s actions related to the siege of Vicksburg. Troops from a Union gunboat landed at Greenville. In retaliation for being fired upon, they burned every building. The inhabitants took refuge in plantation homes of the area. When the war ended, veterans of Mississippi regiments found Greenville in a state of ruin. The former residents soon decided to build again. The place chosen was the highest point on the Mississippi River between the towns of Vicksburg and Memphis. Much of the land then belonged to the Roach and Blanton families; the major part of the area selected was on property owned by Mrs. Harriet Blanton Theobald. She welcomed the idea of a new Greenville, donating land for schools, churches and public buildings. She was called the “Mother of Greenville”. Major Richard O’Hea, who had planned the wartime defense fortifications at Vicksburg, was hired to lay out the new town.
Greenville recovered prosperity, still based on cotton, despite its decline. Residences and other buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was a center of Delta culture in the early 20th century.
Nelson Street
African Americans in the Delta developed rich varieties of innovative music. Nelson Street is a historic strip of blues clubs that drew crowds in the 1940s and 1950s to the flourishing club scene to hear Delta blues, big band, jump blues and jazz. Record companies came here to recruit talent. It was the equivalent of Beale Street in mid-20th century Memphis.
The Mississippi Blues Commission was established to commemorate this music in Mississippi history and culture; it has identified sites throughout the Delta as part of the Mississippi Blues Trail. Southern Whispers Restaurant on Nelson Street was the second site identified on this trail; this was a stop on the chitlin’ circuit in the early days of the blues. The historic marker in front of the restaurant commemorates the importance of this site in the history of the development of the blues in Mississippi.
Source: Wikipedia
Nelson Street – Mississippi Blues Trail Marker
Full Text:
Nelson Street was once the epicenter of African American business and entertainment in the Delta. Nightclubs, cafes, churches, groceries, fish markets, barbershops, laundries, record shops, and other enterprises did a bustling trade. Famous blues clubs on the street included the Casablanca, the Flowing Fountain, and the Playboy Club. Willie Love saluted the street in his 1951 recording “Nelson Street Blues.”
Whereas many Delta towns once “rolled up the sidewalks” in time for curfews, Greenville nurtured a flourishing nightlife, especially during the 1940s and ‘50s. Blues artists and audiences from throughout the area gravitated to the cafes, pool halls, and nightclubs of Nelson Street. The music ranged from raw Delta blues to big band jump blues and jazz. Years before he became America’s top black recording artist, Louis Jordan joined local bandleader and music educator Winchester Davis for some performances here in 1928.
When down-home southern blues was at its commercial peak in the American rhythm and blues industry in the early 1950s, record companies headed for Nelson Street in search of talent. Leading lights on the local scene included Willie Love and Sonny Boy Williamson II, both of whom recorded for the Jackson-based Trumpet label. In 1952 Charlie Booker and others recorded for the rival Modem Records at the Casablanca, an upscale restaurant and lounge at 1102 Nelson, which advertised its services “For Colored Only.” In the midst of one session, the local sheriff ordered the recording stopped when artists contracted to Trumpet attempted to record for Modem. The resulting lawsuit made headlines in the national trade papers.
One of the Casablanca recordings, Charlie Booker’s “No Ridin’ Blues,” joined Willie Love’s “Nelson Street Blues” as a local anthem when Booker sang, “Greenville’s smokin’, Leland’s burnin’ down.” Booker, Love, and Little Milton Campbell were among the blues artists who had their own radio shows on WGVM or WJPR. Disc jockey Rocking Eddie Williams later had a record store on Nelson Street. Blues venues of the 1950s included Henry T’s Pool Room, the Silver Dollar Cafe and the Blue Note.
Nelson Street alumni include Oliver Sain, Eddie Shaw, J.W. “Big Moose” Walker, Burgess Gardner, Lil’ Bill Wallace, Roosevelt “Booba” Barnes, Willie Foster, T-Model Ford, John Horton, and Lil’ Dave Thompson, as well as Greenville’s first black policeman, guitarist Willie “Burl” Carson. The most successful of them all, Little Milton, paid tribute to the Flowing Fountain, a Nelson Street show club, in his 1987 Malaco Records hit “Annie Mae’s Cafe.”
Source: http://msbluestrail.org/
Photo Gallery
Often confused – Greenville and Greenwood, both on Highway 82 – about 53 miles (85km) apart.
Nelson Street in both directions taken at the Mississippi Blues Trail marker outside Southern Whispers Restaurant.
