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Yazoo City is somewhat distinctive
among Mississippi towns in that it is a planned
community. Unlike many other places in the State
that grew up around the happenstance barn, gin
or store, Yazoo City's location was carefully
selected by some of the most successful speculators
of the Jacksonian era.
It
was first chosen in 1826 by the wily half-French
Indian chief, Greenwood Leflore, who received
the acreage on which Yazoo City was built as
a part of the Treaty of Doak's Stand.
Leflore,
in turn, sold it within a few months for $10
an acre to a group of developers who laid out
the town on a precise grid plan and called it
Manchester. The streets were named after presidents
and after the developers themselves and the
lots were auctioned off between 1830-1834.
By
1839, the citizens had developed a sense of
place that made the name Manchester inappropriate.
The town had become the largest community in
the county and had the potential of becoming
the marketing center of several counties.
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