Carthage Historic District

About this property

The city of Carthage is the county seat of Leake County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2020 census, Carthage had a population of 4,901. Carthage is home to the Carthage Historic District including the Leake County Courthouse, a Mississippi Landmark. The largest chicken processing plant in the world is located in Carthage. Carthage was established in 1834, and became the county seat. The Harris family were early settlers, and named the town after their former home of Carthage, Tennessee. A courthouse and jail were built in 1836, and a post office was established the following year. Carthage was incorporated in 1876. A brick courthouse replaced the previous one in 1877, and was replaced again in 1910. The present courthouse was designed by E. L. Malvaney and completed in 1939. The Carthaginian newspaper was established in 1872, and remains in publication today. By 1900, agriculture was the primary industry in Leake County. The Pearl River, located 2 mi (3.2 km) south of Carthage, was used to ship goods by steamboat to and from Jackson, the state capital . Although a railroad eventually ran through Carthage, it did not play a significant role in the development of the town. In 1914, the Merrill Brothers Logging Company built a logging railroad from Canton to McAfee, passing through Carthage. The line was taken over in 1927 by the Canton and Carthage Railroad, which then established commercial service to Carthage. The railroad was abandoned in 1960. In 1927, Jackson's Daily Clarion Ledger wrote an article entitled "Carthage is a Good Progressive and Enterprising City - Thriving Center of Leake County Holds Modern Benefits". By then, Carthage had schools, churches, an ice plant, two banks, a Masonic Hall, and a Coca-Cola bottling plant. The population had surpassed 2,000 by 1964, and the town was reclassified as a city. Carthage Historic District includes the county courthouse, commercial and residential properties of various architectural styles and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Carthage Post Office and Jordan House are individually listed. When Carthage, Texas established in 1848, it was named after Carthage, Mississippi. As early as 1948, Carthage began holding an annual "Tri-Racial Goodwill Festival", in which all citizens were included. Although the directors of the first festival separated whites, African Americans and Native Americans, this was corrected in subsequent years. The local newspaper reported that at the 1949 festival, "friendship and goodwill fellowship permeated the air". In 1964, a group known as Americans for the Preservation of the White Race initiated a boycott in Carthage against white-owned businesses that were complying with the Civil Rights Act. When members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee tried to open a Freedom School in Carthage, local whites told them their deed was invalid, and threatened to burn the school. In 1967, shots were fired into the home of an NAACP worker in Carthage.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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