Mound Landing is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

in Bolivar County,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

, United States. The settlement was located at Choctaw Bend on the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

History

The area was settled in 1840 by William P. Perkins, who used slave labor to clear of

canebrake A canebrake or canebreak is a thicket of any of a variety of ''Arundinaria'' grasses: '' A. gigantea'', '' A. tecta'' and '' A. appalachiana''. As a bamboo, these giant grasses grow in thickets up to 24 ft tall. ''A. gigantea'' is generally ...

s on which he established Mound Plantation, a cotton plantation. Mound Plantation and its river landing were named for three nearby

Indian mounds A number of pre-Columbian cultures are collectively termed "Mound Builders". The term does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than 5 ...

. Perkins eventually owned of land at the settlement and, by 1850, was Bolivar County's largest land owner and one of the United States' largest slaveholders. Mound Landing had a post office as early as 1880. In 1886, the population of Mound Landing was 50. A levee was erected in 1867 to protect the settlement from river flooding. The levee was locally financed, and subsequent improvements to the levee were made. A ferry landing was located at the settlement, with a ramp which permitted vehicles to pass over the top of the levee. In April 1927, as water levels on the Mississippi River began to rise due to heavy rains, an unknown number of Negro prisoners were brought in chains to Mound Landing by the National Guard to fill sandbags at gunpoint in an effort to reinforce the levee. On April 21, the levee at Mound Landing broke, killing at least 100 prisoners and carrying their bodies several miles from the settlement. The

Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States, with inundated in depths of up to over the course of several months in early 1927. The uninflated cost of the damage has been estimat ...

was one of the most damaging floods in the United States, inundating of land in the Mississippi Delta, taking 246 lives, and displacing 700,000 people. A historic marker describing when "the Mississippi River broke the levee at Mound Landing" is located on

Mississippi Highway 1 Mississippi Highway 1 (MS 1) is a state highway in Mississippi that runs south from U.S. Highway 49 near Lula to U.S. Highway 61 south of Cary, roughly paralleling the Mississippi River. It travels approximately , serving Sharkey, Issaquen ...

, approximately east of the former settlement. All that remains at Mound Landing is a boatramp located on private property owned by a hunting club.

Notable person

* J. E. Halbert, member of the Mississippi House of Representatives (1888–1889) and Surgeon General for Mississippi (1889–1892).

References

{{authority control Former populated places in Bolivar County, Mississippi Former populated places in Mississippi Mississippi populated places on the Mississippi River Ghost towns in Mississippi