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MSMississippi Fun Facts
The first human lung transplant took place in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 11, 1963, at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The same surgeon, James Hardy, put a chimpanzee heart into a human patient seven months later, the first heart transplant attempted in a person.
Facts most people get wrong
- The Mississippi Delta is not a delta. It is the alluvial floodplain between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, about 200 miles long, hundreds of miles upstream of the real delta in Louisiana.
- Root beer was not invented in Biloxi. Edward Barq started bottling his there in 1898, but Charles Hires had been selling root beer since 1876. Barq's contribution was a sharper, less sweet recipe.
- Coca-Cola was invented in Atlanta but first bottled in Vicksburg. Joseph Biedenharn put it in bottles in 1894 so he could ship it out to Delta plantations that were nowhere near a soda fountain.
- Elvis was not from Memphis. He was born in Tupelo in 1935 in a two-room house his father built with about $180 in borrowed money. The family did not move to Memphis until he was 13.
- Mississippi's ratification of the 13th Amendment sat unfiled for 18 years. The legislature voted for it in 1995, but nobody sent the paperwork to the federal government. A viewer who watched the film Lincoln looked up the record and pushed it through in 2013.
Records and firsts
- The teddy bear got its name here. Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a tethered black bear near Onward in November 1902, a Washington Post cartoon ran, and a Brooklyn shopkeeper started selling "Teddy's bears."
- Mississippi chartered the first state-supported college for women in the country in 1884, now Mississippi University for Women in Columbus.
- The state raises more farm-raised catfish than any other, nearly all of it in Delta ponds.
- The Natchez Trace Parkway runs 444 miles from Natchez to the edge of Nashville, following the path boatmen walked home after floating their goods downriver.
- Mississippi was the last state to repeal Prohibition, in 1966, thirty-three years after the 21st Amendment. Several counties are still dry.
Geography that surprises
- The white sand beach on the Gulf Coast is man-made. Harrison County built roughly 26 miles of it in the 1950s as seawall protection, which makes it one of the longest artificial beaches anywhere.
- Mississippi has the shortest Gulf coast of the five Gulf states, about 44 miles of general coastline, and it faces the sheltered Mississippi Sound rather than open water.
- Ship Island was one island until Hurricane Camille cut it in half in 1969. It is East and West Ship Island now, and the gap is still called the Camille Cut.
- Woodall Mountain, the state high point, tops out at 807 feet, so the entire state fits inside a vertical range of about 800 feet from the Gulf.
- The Mississippi River keeps changing channel, and several pieces of Mississippi land now sit on the west bank, stranded by old oxbow cutoffs and still legally part of the state.
Where the name comes from
The state took its name from the river, and the river took its name from the Ojibwe misi-ziibi, great river or long river. French missionaries writing in the 1660s and 1670s spelled it Messipi and Michi Sepe before the modern version settled into four i's, four s's and two p's, which is why it is a spelling bee staple. The nickname, Magnolia State, comes from a tree that serves as both the state flower and the state tree, and the Latin motto, Virtute et armis, means by valor and arms.
Questions people ask about Mississippi
What is Mississippi known for?
The birth of the blues in the Delta, Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo, the Natchez Trace, farm-raised catfish, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, the first bottling of Coca-Cola in Vicksburg, and the 1963 lung transplant in Jackson.
What is the weirdest law in Mississippi?
Public profanity is still a misdemeanor. Section 97-29-47 of the state code makes profane swearing in public punishable by a fine of up to $100 or 30 days in jail. Mississippi was also the last state to repeal Prohibition, in 1966, and a number of counties remain dry.
Where is the Mississippi Delta?
In northwest Mississippi, between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, running about 200 miles from Memphis down to Vicksburg. It is a floodplain, not a river delta. The actual delta is in Louisiana.
Is the Mississippi Gulf Coast beach natural?
No. Harrison County built roughly 26 miles of sand beach in the 1950s to protect a seawall, and the sand is replaced after storms. The barrier islands offshore are natural.
Why is Mississippi called the Magnolia State?
The magnolia is both the state flower, chosen by a schoolchildren's vote in 1900, and the state tree, adopted in 1938. The nickname followed the tree, and the blossom appears on the state flag adopted in 2020.