Lauderdale County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

located on the eastern border of the U.S. state of

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 ...

. As of the 2020 census, the population was 72,984. The

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

and largest city is Meridian. The county is named for Colonel

James Lauderdale James Lauderdale (1768–1814) was an American militia officer who fought in the Creek War and The Battle of New Orleans. In 1813, he joined a unit of cavalry Militia (United States), militia under General John Coffee, commissioned as a Lieutenant ...

, who was killed at the Battle of New Orleans in the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

. Lauderdale County is included in the Meridian, MS Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History

An early explorer, Sam Dale, died in the county and is buried in Daleville. A large monument is placed at his burial site.

Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before Presidency of Andrew Jackson, his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses ...

traveled through the county on his way to

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

and a town was named Hickory after his nickname "Old Hickory". The largest city in the county is Meridian, which was an important railway intersection during the early 20th century. It was also home to the Soule Steam Feed Works which manufactured steam engines. Logging and rail transport were important early industries in the county. One of the largest waterfalls in Mississippi, Dunns Falls, is located in the county and a water driven mill still exists on the site. Lauderdale County is home to the headquarters of Peavey Electronics which has manufactured audio and music equipment since 1965. Like much of the

post-Reconstruction The nadir of American race relations was the period in African-American history and the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction era, Reconstruction in 1877 through the early 20th century, when racism in the United States, r ...

South the county has a checkered racial history with 16 documented lynchings in the period from 1877 to 1950; most of them happened around the turn of the 20th century.''Lynching in America'', 2nd edition
, Supplement by County, p. 5

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.6%) is water.

Major highways

* Interstate 59 * Interstate 20 * U.S. Highway 11 * U.S. Highway 45 * U.S. Highway 80 * Mississippi Highway 19 * Mississippi Highway 39

Adjacent counties

* Kemper County (north) * Sumter County, Alabama (east) * Choctaw County, Alabama (southeast) * Clarke County (south) * Newton County (west)

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 72,984 people, 29,367 households, and 19,612 families residing in the county.

2000 census

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 78,161 people, 29,990 households, and 20,573 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 33,418 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 60.15%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 38.18%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.18% Native American, 0.50% Asian, 0.03%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 0.34% from other races, and 0.63% from two or more races. 1.14% of the population were

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race. There were 29,990 households, out of which 33.90% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.70% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 18.30% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.40% were non-families. 28.00% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.70% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49 and the average family size was 3.06. In the county, the population was spread out, with 26.60% under the age of 18, 9.80% from 18 to 24, 28.00% from 25 to 44, 21.40% from 45 to 64, and 14.20% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 90.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.50 males. The median income for a household in the county was $30,768, and the median income for a family was $37,581. Males had a median income of $31,069 versus $21,111 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the county was $16,026. About 17.10% of families and 20.80% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 28.80% of those under age 18 and 18.80% of those age 65 or over.

2015

As of 2015 the largest self-identified ancestry groups in Lauderdale County, Mississippi are: * English - 9.3% * Irish - 8.9% * American - 8.0% * German - 5.9% * Scottish - 2.1% * Scots-Irish - 1.7% * Italian - 1.2% * French (except Basque) - 1.1% * French-Canadian - 0.6%

Government and infrastructure

The East Mississippi Correctional Facility is located in an

unincorporated area 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 ...

of the county, near Meridian. Intended to provide intensive treatment for up to 1500 state prisoners who are mentally ill, it has been operated since 2012 by Management and Training Corporation under contract to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. In 2013 the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class-action suit against the state and MTC for poor conditions at the facility.Gabriel Eber (May 30, 2013)
"NEW LAWSUIT: Massive Human Rights Violations at Mississippi Prison"
ACLU. Retrieved December 3, 2014. The court granted the plaintiffs class certification in 2015, allowing the case to proceed.''Dockery v. Epps''
updated September 2015, Cases: Prisoners' Rights, ACLU official website; accessed March 7, 2017 The former for-profit contractor,

GEO Group The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in the United States, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The company ...

,Private Prisons
," Mississippi Department of Corrections. Retrieved on November 19, 2010. was forced out of its contracts for this and two other state facilities in 2012 as a result of settlement of a class-action suit for its poor management of the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility.

Politics

Lauderdale County is a Republican stronghold, having seen a shift from the Democratic Party in the 1960s like much of Mississippi in general. This is true despite nearly half of the county's population being African American.

Education

Lauderdale County is within the service area of the East Mississippi Community College system.CATALOG 2007-2009
." East Mississippi Community College. 3 (3/147). Retrieved on March 1, 2011. The system offers classes at the Naval Air Station Meridian Extension in Meridian.CATALOG 2007-2009
." East Mississippi Community College. 10 (10/147). Retrieved on March 1, 2011. Other academic institutions are Meridian Community College, and

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Mississippi State, Mississippi, Un ...

Meridian Campus.

Communities

City

* Meridian (county seat and largest municipality)

Town

* Marion (smallest municipality)

Unincorporated areas

Census-designated places

* Collinsville * Lauderdale * Meridian Station * Nellieburg * Toomsuba

Other communities

* Alamucha * Bailey * Daleville * Increase * Kewanee * Lizelia * Meehan * Point * Russell *

Savoy Savoy (; )  is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south and west and to the Aosta Vall ...

* Suqualena *

Whynot Whynot may refer to: Media * WHYNOT, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia Place * Whynot, Mississippi, U.S. * Whynot, North Carolina, U.S. Jazz * Whynot Records, a Japanese jazz record label * WhyNot Jazz Room, a jazz club in New York City Pe ...

Zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. Adding (or subtracting) 0 to any number leaves that number unchanged; in mathematical terminology, 0 is the additive identity of the integers, rational numbers, real numbers, and compl ...

Notable people

* Samuel Dale (1772–1841), American frontiersman, known as the "Daniel Boone of Alabama" and a veteran of the Creek War of 1813–14. In 1836, Dale was elected as Lauderdale County's first representative in the Mississippi state legislature.

References

External links

Lauderdale County, MS

Meridian/Lauderdale County Tourism Bureau

Mississippi Courthouses – Lauderdale County
{{authority control Mississippi counties County in Meridian micropolitan area 1833 establishments in Mississippi Populated places established in 1833