Pontotoc County Blues

Cordell Miller was born in Pontotoc in 1923 to a father who led a string band, the Pontotoc Ridge Runners. After marrying in 1943 she settled in Memphis, worked as a riveter and in 1947 set up recording equipment at home, where she cut demos for Sam Phillips before Sun Records existed. In 1956 she founded Moon Records, engineering, producing and arranging the singles herself with advice from Chet Atkins. She is thought to be the first woman to run a rock and roll label that way. Late in life she was Guitar Granny. She died in 2004.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chickasaw Council House — 12 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

• Pierre D'Artaguiette — steps away
• Jim Weatherly — 0.4 mi
• Maj. Gen. William Colbert — 0.5 mi
• Lochinvar — 2.0 mi