Welcome to Mississippi Trails to the Past!
Mississippi Trivia
In 1963 the University of Mississippi Medical Center
accomplished the world's first human lung transplant and, on
January 23, 1964, Dr. James D. Hardy performed the world's
first heart transplant surgery.
Borden's Condensed Milk was first canned in Liberty.
In 1902 while on a hunting expedition in Sharkey County,
President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt refused to shoot a
captured bear. This act resulted in the creation of the
world-famous teddy bear.
The world's largest shrimp is on display at the Old Spanish
Fort Museum in Pascagoula.
The first bottle of Dr. Tichener's Antiseptic was produced
in Liberty.
The world's largest cactus plantation is in Edwards.
Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, on January 8, 1935.
H.T. Merrill from Luka performed the world's first round
trip trans-oceanic flight in 1928.
In 1884 the concept of selling shoes in boxes in pairs
(right foot and left foot) occurred in Vicksburg at Phil
Gilbert's Shoe Parlor on Washington Street.
The first female rural mail carrier in the United States was
Mrs. Mamie Thomas. She delivered mail by buggy to the area
southeast of Vicksburg in 1914.
Historic Jefferson College, circa 1802, was the first
preparatory school established in the Mississippi Territory.
Located in Washington the educational institution is also
the site where tradition holds Aaron Burr was arraigned for
treason in 1807, beneath what became known as Burr Oaks.
William Grant Still of Woodville composed the Afro-American
Symphony.
Burnita Shelton Mathews of Hazelhurst was the first woman
federal judge in the United States and served in Washington,
the District of Columbia.
Dr. Emmette F. Izard of Hazelhurst developed the first
fibers of rayon. They became known as the first real
synthetics.
The first nuclear submarine built in the south was produced
in Mississippi.
In 1871 Liberty became the first town in the United States
to erect a Confederate monument.
Mississippi was the first state in the nation to have a
planned system of junior colleges.
Leontyne Price of Laurel, performed with the New York
Metropolitan Opera.
Mississippi is the birthplace of the Order of the Eastern
Star.
The rarest of North American cranes lives in Mississippi in
the grassy savannas of Jackson County. The Mississippi
Sandhill Crane stands about 44 inches tall and has an
eight-foot wingspan.
Guy Bush of Tupelo was one of the most valuable players with
the Chicago Cubs. He was on the 1929 World Series team and
Babe Ruth hit his last home run off a ball pitched by Bush.
S.B. Sam Vick of Oakland played for the New York Yankees and
the Boston Red Sox. He was the only man ever to pinch hit
for the baseball great Babe Ruth.
Blazon-Flexible Flyer, Inc. in West Point is proclaimed to
make the very best snow sled in the United States, which
became an American tradition. It is called The Flexible
Flyer.
Friendship Cemetery in Columbus has been called Where
Flowers Healed a Nation. It was April 25, 1866, and the
Civil War had been over for a year when the ladies of
Columbus decided to decorate both Confederate and Union
soldiers' graves with beautiful bouquets and garlands of
flowers. As a direct result of this kind gesture, Americans
celebrate what has come to be called Memorial Day each year,
an annual observance of recognition of war dead.
The largest Bible-binding plant in the nation is Norris
Bookbinding Company in Greenwood.
After the Civil War, famed hat maker John B. Stetson learned
and practiced his trade at Dunn's Falls near Meridian.
In 1834 Captain Isaac Ross, whose plantation was in Lorman,
freed his slaves and arranged for them to be sent to Africa,
where they founded the country of Liberia. Recently,
representatives of Liberia visited Lorman and placed a stone
at the Captain's gravesite in honor of his kindness.
The world's largest cottonwood tree plantation is in
Issaquena County.
David Harrison of Columbus owns the patent on the Soft
Toilet Seat. Over 1,000,000 are sold every year.
The first football player on a Wheaties box was Walter
Payton of Columbia.
Greenwood is the home of Cotton Row, which is the second
largest cotton exchange in the nation and is on the National
Register of Historic Places.
The oldest game in America is stickball. The Choctaw Indians
of Mississippi played the game. Demonstrations can be seen
every July at the Choctaw Indian Fair in Philadelphia.
The International Checkers Hall of Fame is in Petal.
Natchez was settled by the French in 1716 and is the oldest
permanent settlement on the Mississippi River. Natchez once
had 500 millionaires, more than any other city except New
York City.
Natchez now has more than 500 buildings that are on the
National Register of Historic Places.
The Natchez Trace Parkway, named an All American Road by the
federal government, extends from Natchez to just south of
Nashville, Tennessee. The Trace began as an Indian trail
more than 8,000 years ago.
The Vicksburg National Cemetery is the second largest
national cemetery in the country. Arlington National
Cemetery is the largest.
D'Lo was featured in "Life Magazine" for sending
proportionally more men to serve in World War II than any
other town of its size. 38 percent of the men who lived in
D'Lo served.
Mississippi suffered the largest percentage of people who
died in the Civil War of any Confederate State. 78,000
Mississippians entered the Confederate military. By the end
of the war 59,000 were either dead or wounded.
Pine Sol was invented in 1929 by Jackson native Harry A.
Cole, Sr.
The world's largest pecan nursery is in Lumberton.
Greenwood is called the Cotton Capital of the World.
Belzoni is called the Catfish Capital of the World.
Vardaman is called the Sweet Potato Capital of the World.
Greenville is called the Towboat Capital of the World.
Root beer was invented in Biloxi in 1898 by Edward Adolf
Barq, Sr.
Of Mississippi's 82 counties, Yazoo County is the largest
and Alcorn County is the smallest.
The Mississippi River is the largest in the United States
and is the nation's chief waterway. Its nickname is Old Man
River.
At Vicksburg, the United States Army Corps of Engineers
Waterways Experiment Station is the world's largest
hydraulic research laboratory.
At Pascagoula the Ingalls Division of Litton Industries uses
leading-edge construction techniques to build the United
State Navy's most sophisticated ships. At the state's eight
research centers programs are under way in acoustics,
polymer science, electricity, microelectronics,
hydrodynamics, and oceanography.
Thanks to: Ron Collins, Greg Maxedon, Source:
"Mississippi", published by the office of the Secretary of
State
http://www.50states.com/facts/miss.htm#.VKr1MSvF-aw
Children in the United States and Canada often count "One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi" during informal games such as hide and seek to approximate counting by seconds.
On March 12, 1894, the Biedenharn Candy Company bottled the
first Coca-Cola in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Root beer was
invented in Biloxi in 1898 by Edward Adolf Barq, the
namesake of Barq's Root Beer.
In 1935, the world's first night rodeo held outdoors under
electric lights was produced by Earl Bascom and Weldon
Bascom in Columbia, Marion County, Mississippi
In 1936, Dr. Leslie Rush, of Rush Hospital in Meridian,
Mississippi, performed the first bone pinning in the United
States. The "Rush Pin" is still in use.
Marilyn Monroe won the Mrs. Mississippi finals in the 1952
film We're Not Married!
Texas Rose Bascom, of Columbia, Mississippi, became the most
famous female trick roper in the world, performing on stage
and in Hollywood movies. She toured the world with Bob Hope,
billed as the "Queen of the Trick Ropers," and was the first
Mississippian to be inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall
of Fame.
In 1963, Dr. James D. Hardy of the University of Mississippi
Medical Center performed the first human lung transplant in
Jackson, Mississippi. In 1964, Dr. Hardy performed the first
heart transplant, transplanting the heart of a chimpanzee
into a human, where it beat for 90 minutes.
"At 10:00 a.m. on October 22, 1964, the United States
government detonated an underground nuclear device in Lamar
County, in south Mississippi. (...) The Project Salmon blast
was about one-third as powerful as the bomb that destroyed
Hiroshima in 1945. (...) The Project Sterling blast, on
December 3, 1966, was considerably weaker than the blast two
years earlier, as it was intended to be."
On January 8, 1935, Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo.
Several warships have been named USS Mississippi.
The comic book character Rogue, from the well-known series
X-Men, is a Mississippian and self-declared southern belle.
Her home town is located in the fictional county of
Caldecott.
In 2013, researchers at the University of Mississippi
Medical Center discovered a functional cure for HIV/AIDS in
infants.
Many of legal thriller writer John Grisham's novels are set
in and around the fictional town of Clanton, in the equally
fictional Ford County, northwest Mississippi.
In "Star Trek," Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Chief Medical
Officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise, studied medicine at the
University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Johnny Carson attended Millsaps College under an elite Navy
program to train officers, known as the V-12 Program from
November 1943 to February 1945.
The first season of HBO's True Detective (2013) takes
place in and around the state of Mississippi, with several
reference to its culture, history and Hurricane Katrina.
Courtesy of Wikipedia