Caile is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

located in Sunflower County,

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

in the

Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazo ...

. Caile is located on U.S. Route 49W approximately north of Isola and approximately south of

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

. The origin of the community's name is unknown and was also known as "Lawrence Deadening". It was founded c. 1888 but never grew to more than a small settlement. The post office, named Ark, was discontinued in 1917 to avoid confusion with Coila in Carroll County. There was a store which was continuously owned and operated by Sid and Helen Windham in downtown from April 1954 to 1997. The store building itself was constructed in 1930 by Herman C. Burrus, and still exists today (June 2006) as the residence of Sid and Helen Windham. Families that settled in Caile were Aycock, Orr, Windham, Jones, Miller, Cook, Wright, Sumrall, Shepard, Maxwell, Bradley, Paxton, Pennebaker, Tinnin, and Gholston, to name a few. In 1903, the

Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad (Y&MV) was incorporated in 1882 and was part of the Illinois Central Railroad system (IC). Construction began in Jackson, Mississippi, and continued to Yazoo City, Mississippi. The line was later expand ...

, known locally as the Yellow Dog, purchased ROW and built a line through the Caile community. There was a commissary and loading platform on the property of Ellis Orr. This served as a flagstop for the Y&MVRR. A large open

sandpit A sandpit (most Commonwealth countries) or sandbox (US and Canada) is a low, wide container or shallow depression filled with soft (beach) sand in which children can play. Sharp sand (as used in the building industry) is not suitable for su ...

exists today just south of this site where dirt for constructing the roadbed was excavated. The railroad was abandoned in the 1980s.

Churches

The Caile United Methodist Church is east of the sandpit facing Route 49W. Across the highway from the church is the Caile Cemetery, which has been in use since 1894. St Lawrence Missionary Baptist Church, a church of African-American origin, is farther south on the highway. The cemetery for this church is on both sides of Route 49W. Many of the graves in this cemetery were moved west of the highway when right-of-way was acquired for expansion of 49W to four lanes. Property for both of these churches was donated in the 1890s by Ms Emma Reynolds, the postmistress of Ark.

Historical buildings

Very few of the original dwellings remain in Caile. The Windham homestead, built in the 1870s, was originally part of the Jake Orr estate and still stands but is in very poor condition. The original commissary, which faced the railroad, was destroyed by a lightning fire in the 1930s.

Schools

There were two segregated schools in the Caile community. The African-American school was on the property of W. W. Gholston. It had not been in use since the 1950s, and was destroyed by fire in 2006. The "white" school was just south of the Caile store on the property of W. O. Jones. It was consolidated with Inverness in the early 1930s. The site of this school is now a large pit where dirt was excavated for highway construction during four-laning in the 1980s.

References

Gallery

Image:CaileSign.jpg, A Cold Day in Caile Image:CaileStore.jpg, Caile Store, Constructed in 1930 Image:CaileUnitedMethodistChurch1.jpg, Caile United Methodist Church Image:CaileCemetary3.jpg, Cemetery at Caile UMC File:St Lawrence MB Church, Caile.jpg, St Lawrence MB Church File:St Lawrence MB Church Sign.jpg, St Lawrence MB Church Sign {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Mississippi Unincorporated communities in Sunflower County, Mississippi