Union County, Mississippi

Union County dates from 1870 and was cut from Tippah and Pontotoc Counties, with land from Lee added in 1874. Its name honors the Union of the United States, chosen during Reconstruction. Ingomar Mound, five miles south of New Albany, was built more than two thousand years ago and later used by the Chickasaw for ceremonies. In 1880 farmers grew the fifth-most wheat in the state but ranked forty-fifth in cotton. Morris Futorian opened a furniture factory in 1948 with 55 workers, and a Toyota plant opened at Blue Springs in 2010.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site — 16 mi
  The crossroads where Nathan Bedford Forrest routed a larger Union force in June 1864, and where Black regiments, many raised at Corinth, held the bridge that let most of the army escape.
• Natchez Trace Parkway Visitor Center — 20 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.
• Chickasaw Village Site — 21 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 — 22 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.

More markers nearby

• Mosley and Johnson — steps away
• William Faulkner — steps away
• Roma Wilson & Leon Pinson — 0.5 mi
• Myrtle — 7.7 mi