Jim Weatherly

Before he wrote hit songs, Jim Weatherly was a quarterback. Born in Pontotoc in 1943, he starred at Pontotoc High School, then played at Ole Miss, a backup on the undefeated 1962 team and the starter in 1963. He chose music over football after graduating. His song Midnight Train to Georgia, recorded by Gladys Knight and the Pips, reached number one on the pop and R&B charts and won a Grammy. In 2002 he sued his publisher over unpaid royalties for it, and the Ninth Circuit's ruling became precedent for other artists. He died in 2021.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chickasaw Council House — 13 mi
  A roadside exhibit on the Natchez Trace Parkway marking the Chickasaw capital of the 1820s and the council house where the 1832 treaty of Pontotoc Creek ended Chickasaw title to Mississippi.
• Chickasaw Village Site — 15 mi
  A Chickasaw village on a remnant of the Black Belt Prairie beside the Natchez Trace Parkway, with house outlines marked on the ground and signs that speak in Chickasaw voices.
• Tupelo National Battlefield — 15 mi
  A one-acre park on Main Street marking the July 1864 battle of Tupelo, a Union victory that kept Nathan Bedford Forrest away from Sherman's supply line, with Black soldiers among the defenders.
• Natchez Trace Parkway Visitor Center — 17 mi
  The parkway's headquarters and official visitor center near Tupelo, with a film, a small museum of the Old Trace and the surviving New Deal houses of the Tupelo Homesteads.

More markers nearby

• Maj. Gen. William Colbert — steps away
• Pontotoc County Blues — 0.4 mi
• Pierre D'Artaguiette — 0.4 mi
• Lochinvar — 2.4 mi