Historical Marker
Mississippi Mills
Wesson, Copiah County · Mississippi
Erected by Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1955
Wesson was a company town before it was much of a town. After Union troops burned his Bankston mill in January 1865, James Madison Wesson started over in Copiah County. Fire took the first mill in 1873, so the next owners built in brick, with Edmund Richardson, the state's largest cotton planter, as partner. Four mills rose between 1873 and 1894, one five stories tall under a seven-story tower, steam-driven and lit by electricity early. In the late 1880s about 1,200 people worked there. Receivership came in 1906, closure in 1910 and demolition by 1920.
Where it stands
31.70365, -90.39595 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Houston Stackhouse — 0.4 mi
- Copiah-Lincoln Agricultural High School — 0.9 mi
- Little Brother Montgomery — 8.7 mi
- Whitworth College — 9.1 mi