Cotton Gin Port is a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

in Monroe 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 ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Geography

Cotton Gin Port was located at on the east bank of the Tombigbee river.

History

Cotton Gin Port was the first town settled by Europeans in what became north

. It was developed on the east bank of the

Tombigbee River The Tombigbee River is a tributary of the Mobile River, approximately 200 mi (325 km) long, in the U.S. states of Mississippi and Alabama. Together with the Alabama, it merges to form the short Mobile River before the latter empties i ...

, at a crossing of vital Indian trails. This had been a base of expeditions of French explorers

Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville (; ; February 23, 1680 – March 7, 1767), also known as Sieur de Bienville, was a French-Canadian colonial administrator in New France. Born in Montreal, he was an early governor of French Louisiana, appo ...

in 1736 and Vaudreuil in 1752. After the United States acquired the territory, it was first considered part of Marion County in the

Alabama Territory The Territory of Alabama (sometimes Alabama Territory) was an organized incorporated territory of the United States. The Alabama Territory was carved from the Mississippi Territory on August 15, 1817 and lasted until December 14, 1819, when i ...

. The new demarcation lines of 1820-21 established a state boundary that allocated the town and related area to Mississippi. The early U.S. government built a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

in 1801 at Cotton Gin Port as part of a "plan of civilization" for the local

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, United States. Their traditional territory was in northern Mississippi, northwestern and northern Alabama, western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. Their language is ...

, whom it wanted to have adopt European-American customs. The settlement soon became recognized as a trading post for business with the Chickasaw. A road, Gaines Trace, was built to the town in 1811 and 1812. This road ran from close to present-day

Muscle Shoals Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is located on the left bank of the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state and, as of the 2010 census, its population was 13,146. The estimated popula ...

on the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

to Cotton Gin Port, where it crossed the Tombigbee. From there it continued south to

Fort Stoddert Fort Stoddert, also known as Fort Stoddard, was a stockade fort in the U.S. Mississippi Territory, in what is today Alabama. It was located on a bluff of the Mobile River, near modern Mount Vernon, close to the confluence of the Tombigbee and ...

, Alabama. As railroads were constructed in the region, the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham Railroad bypassed Cotton Gin Port, and established a new railroad town at

Amory, Mississippi Amory is a city in Monroe County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 6,666 at the 2020 census, down from 7,316 in 2010. Located in the northeastern part of the state near the Alabama border, it was founded in 1887 as a railroad tow ...

. In a pattern repeated in numerous other places, this bypass resulted in the older town being abandoned, as businesses and residents moved to have access to the railroad at Amory. The ruins of the old town can still be found between the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the

. Relics from the former settlement can be seen at the Amory Municipal Museum.

Levi Colbert Levi Colbert (June 2, 1834) was an early 19th-century Chickasaw leader and the namesake of Itawamba County, Mississippi. Early life and education Levi Colbert was born around 1759 in the Chickasaw Nation (present-day Alabama). He was the ...

, a chief of the Chickasaw, is said to have lived on the bluff west of Cotton Gin Port, near a large spreading oak known as the council tree, a meeting place for tribal elders. The former cotton gin was built near here.Dr. W.A. Evans, ''Aberdeen Examiner'', July 2, 1936 (excerpt from ''The Heritage of Lamar County, Alabama'', by John Mitchell Allman III, (1938-2018)).

References

* Elliott, Jack D. and Wells, Mary Ann. (2003). ''Cotton Gin Port : a frontier settlement on the Upper Tombigbee''. Jackson, Mississippi: Quail Ridge Press for the Mississippi Historical Society.

External links

Albert James Pickett: HISTORY OF ALABAMA.

Rowland's History of Cotton Gin Port, Monroe County, Mississippi
{{authority control Former populated places in Monroe County, Mississippi Ghost towns in Mississippi National Register of Historic Places in Monroe County, Mississippi Populated places on the National Register of Historic Places in Mississippi Chickasaw Louisiana (New France) Pre-statehood history of Mississippi Native American history of Mississippi