A FORTY-FIVE MINUTE RUN
THROUGH YAZOO - MORE OR LESS

Louise to Broad Lake Bridge -- 10 1/2 minutes

Welcome to Yazoo County. For the next 35 miles or so, you will be traveling in Mississippi's largest county. It includes a land area of 610,000 acres and stretches 55 miles from east to west. Our county population is approximately 27,000 and our county seat, Yazoo City, has roughly 11,000 outstanding citizens.

The name "Yazoo" is, of course, Indian. Archeological finds show that successive Indian cultures have flourished in this region since 6,000 b.c., but we know little about the oldest ones except that they were mound builders. This part of our county is dotted with them still. We shall pass a small one in the front yard of a home on your right in just a moment. Some of those mounds were originally over 50 feet high.

When the first Europeans arrived in our county (they were French explorers following the course of the Mississippi River down from Canada in 1682), the principal tribe in Central Mississippi was the Choctaw. This region where we are right now was swampy country then, subject almost every year to spring floods, so there were no Choctaw villages in our part of the future state. At the mouth of the Yazoo near Vicksburg, however, they found a small village of a smaller tribe--the Yazoos, spelled by the French Y-A-S-O-U-X, so named our river for them.

We have never known what "Yazoo" meant--if anything. Sadly, the tribe died out soon after the French came, probably from European diseases like so many others in the Americas. Or they could have finally run afoul of the Choctaws. We really don't know.

The county's terrain is made up partly of flat, delta land, and partly hills. Obviously, we are now in the delta. As you will see in about fifteen minutes, on the eastern side of Yazoo City you will experience the hill area all the way to Jackson.

As you ride through Yazoo County you may notice differences in plant and animal life. The drainage in this flat delta land is poor, hence much swamp country filled with cypress trees which grow well in water, small palmetto palms, and large canebrakes.

There are plenty of alligators, too, as well as deer, wild turkey, bobcats, and--in winter--ducks and geese from Canada. All our lakes are former creeks and river beds that have been naturally cut off in the distant past.

We are fortunate to have at our borders three wildlife refuges covering several thousand acres, and one, Panther Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, within the county. In the northeast we have Hillside Wildlife Refuge which we share with Holmes County, and in the southwest we have the massive Delta National Forest which we share with Sharkey County. There are very few animals living in Mississippi which cannot be found in one or both of these forests. Hunting is allowed in season and many trophy animals have been taken from the refuges.

Agriculturally, we are one of the state's most important counties. Of the 82 counties, we are No. 1 in cotton production, No. 1 in grain sorghum, and No. 1 in swine production. We're No. 5 in catfish and 11th in both soybeans and corn.

Our agriculture is among the most diversified. Approximately 1/3 of the county is comprised of the relatively flat delta land that you see here, and 2/3's is made up of the hill area you'll see in a few minutes.

You have heard the phrase "cotton is king" in the south. That certainly seems to be true in Yazoo County. In 1991, of the $125 million which agriculture directly generated, cotton was responsible for about $75 million. Catfish brought in some $20 million. We also grow wheat, rice, and some Christmas trees and other horticultural crops. In addition, our hardwood forests have resulted in several timber companies locating here recently. As a matter of fact, 1991 forestry contributed almost as much to our economy as soybeans.

Up until the 1950's corn was an important crop, mainly because of the many mules used on farms. Furthermore, hogs were fattened by turning them out into the corn fields. Currently hogs are produced in confinement on slab floors.

Even though many of the farms in Yazoo are incorporated and many contain several thousand acres, for the most part they are family farms. Some have been in the same family for five or more generations.

An important resource in this county is the people themselves. Yazoo County farmers have won many state, regional, and even national awards. We have a former president of the National Angus Association, former president of the National Catfish Association, and many farmers who assume prominent roles in other agricultural organizations.