August 17, 2026: Laurel (Mississippi) Histories: Indigenous Origins

[We all need comfort texts in 2026, and for my wife and I one of our most surprising finds has been the delightful home renovation show Home Town. The show is deeply tied to its historic community of Laurel, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of Laurel histories, leading up to a special weekend tribute to what makes Home Town so special!]

Three ways to connect with the region’s and state’s Native American communities, past and present.

1. The Mississippi Mound Trail: As was the case for much of the middle section of what would become the United States, for many hundreds of years (between around the year 0 and 1300 or thereabouts) the indigenous communities in Mississippi constructed giant earthen mounds, likely for a variety of civic, social, and spiritual purposes although they mostly remain mysterious. A number of those mounds have survived, and in recent years the Mississippi Department of Archives and History has created a driving trail that links 33 of the sites, many of which feature extensive documentation for visitors. Maybe you’ll figure out what they were used for, more likely you’ll just gaze in awe at these architectural wonders, and in any case you’ll get to connect to this fascinating part of the state’s very early histories.
2. The Choctaw Indian Fair: As the first hyperlinked piece above notes, Mississippi was once the home to more indigenous tribes than any other southeastern state, but most are tragically no longer present in the 21^st century (or at least are not federally recognized). Even in that multicultural period the Choctaw were the most populous, and they are now the state’s only federally recognized tribe. Their Cultural Center in Philadelphia (MS) offers a year-round way to get to know this historic and still vibrant community, but if you’re around the state in mid-July, a more singular and striking such chance is presented by the Choctaw Indian Fair, located in the tribe’s community of Choctaw, MS. Among many other attractions connected to the tribe, the Fair features the World Series of Stickball (WSS), a tournament that dates back to the first Fair in 1949 and has only grown in the 75 years since.
3. Oral Histories: That hyperlink is for the Mississippi Choctaw Oral History Collection, an archive of more than 1000 interviews recorded between 1970 and 2000 and held at the University of Florida’s George Smathers Library. The interviews feature indigenous voices from a number of different tribes, but include thirty-five interviews with members of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. I don’t have too much more to say other than that we should all do everything we can to connect with, hear, and engage such voices and perspectives, and this collection represents an excellent starting point for doing just that.

Next LaurelStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think?