Lexington, Mississippi facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lexington, Mississippi
City
St. Mary's Episcopal Church
Location of Lexington, Mississippi
Lexington, Mississippi Location in the United States
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Holmes
Area
• Total	2.42 sq mi (6.27 km2)
• Land	2.42 sq mi (6.26 km2)
• Water	0.00 sq mi (0.01 km2)
Elevation	233 ft (71 m)
Population  (2010)
• Total	1,731
• Estimate  (2019)	1,453
• Density	601.16/sq mi (232.06/km2)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code	39095
Area code(s)	662
FIPS code	28-40600
GNIS feature ID	0672434

Lexington is a city in and the county seat of Holmes County, Mississippi, United States. The county was organized in 1833 and the city in 1836. The population was 1,731 at the 2010 census, down from 2,025 at the 2000 census. The estimated population in 2018 was 1,496. It has declined from its high of 3198 in 1950 due to the expansion of industrial-scale agriculture. Because of the difficulties in making a living, many people have left the rural county to seek work elsewhere.

History

Incorporated in 1836, the city of Lexington was founded by European-American settlers after most of the Choctaw people, who had long occupied this area, were forced to cede their land to the United States and remove to the Indian Territory. The new settlers initially developed riverfront land along the Yazoo and Black rivers for cotton plantations, primarily worked by enslaved African Americans. The slaves were brought by planters with them from the Upper South or transported in the domestic slave trade. In total, more than one million African Americans were transported to the Deep South, breaking up many families. The African-descended slaves soon constituted the majority of the Holmes County population.

On court days, the town served as a trading center for the county and attracted retail merchants. Lexington was a destination in the 1830s of some German-Jewish immigrants, who often became merchants. They were joined much later in the century by Russian Jewish immigrants. The Jewish community built Temple Beth El in Lexington in 1905; it closed in 2009 because of declining population. During the plantation era, the city was bustling, as planters grew wealthy from the booming demand for cotton in the North and Europe.

Among the early settlers in the 1830s was German-Jewish immigrant Jacob Sontheimer, who first worked caring for an elderly planter. After being bequeathed land, Sontheimer later became a merchant in town. His two daughters, Rose and Bettie, also became merchants, managing the Sontheimer business. He was joined by other Jewish immigrants from Germany, totaling about 20 by the late 1870s and 50 by 1900. In the later years Jewish immigrants also came from eastern Europe to Lexington. They developed tailoring and grocery businesses; the Lewis Grocery Store developed into a major wholesaler in the state.

After the Civil War, freedmen in Holmes County, who constituted the majority of the population, joined the Republican Party and elected several county sheriffs and other local officers. They sought education and some became landowners, clearing land in the bottomlands and selling their timber to raise money for purchase. This progress was before 1890, when they were essentially deprived of the vote by the state legislature passing a new constitution, which created barriers to voter registration and forced them out of politics for decades into the late 20th century. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, financial recession and lack of political clout meant that many freedmen lost their land; within a generation they had regressed to the status of sharecropper and tenant farmer.

20th century to present

Edmund F. Noel, an attorney in Lexington who was a son of planters Leland and Margaret Noel, was elected as state legislator and later as District Attorney. In 1906 he was elected as governor of Mississippi, serving through 1912. His house at North Street is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its distinctive architecture, as the Gov. Edmond F. Noel House.

In the early 20th century, Mississippi planters recruited Chinese immigrant workers to satisfy the demand for labor, and some came to Holmes County. As the area suffered from the boll weevil infestation, the cotton crops suffered. Mechanization reduced the need for farm labor, leading to a decline in county and town populations from the 1930s on. Many African Americans left the South for northern and midwestern industrial cities, seeking more opportunities and escape from the violence of lynchings and Jim Crow rules.

Lexington was distinguished by two nationally known women: Arenia Conelia Mallory, a young African-American music teacher from Illinois who had joined the Church of God in Christ and became president of its affiliated Saints Academy in Lexington, expanding its programs and developing the school along a model of academic excellence, and founding an associated junior college during her long tenure, when she also served in national Presidential appointments in the federal government; and Hazel Brannon Smith, a white woman based in Lexington who owned and published several rural newspapers and promoted integration and change in the civil rights era, winning a Pulitzer Prize for her editorials.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.5 square miles (6.5 km²), all land.

Climate

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Lexington has a humid subtropical climate, in common with the vast majority of the American South.

Demographics

The table to the right shows two periods of dramatic population declines: from 1910 to 1920, and in the decades after 1960. These are periods of mechanization of agriculture and consolidation of land into large, industrial holdings. Many African Americans left the area in the Great Migration, particularly before passage of civil rights legislation, for better jobs elsewhere and to escape Jim Crow.

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 1,602 people, 545 households, and 363 families residing in the city.

2010 census

As of the 2010 Census, the racial composition of the city was:

• 71.8% Black or African American;
• 27.0% White
• 0.06% from other races;
• 0.5% Asian;
• 0.5% from two or more races;
• 0.1% American Indian;
• 0.0% Pacific Islander.

Education

The city of Lexington is served by the Holmes County School District. William Dean Jr. Elementary School, and Holmes County Central High School (in the former J. J. McClain High School) are located in the area. The community previously also housed Lexington Elementary School.

Lexington was previously home to Saints Industrial and Literary School, later known as Saints Academy. Founded in 1918, this private school for African-American students was established by the Church of God in Christ. Arenia Mallory, from Illinois, began as a music teacher and became principal and president of the school. She led its growth and the setting of high academic standards to provide opportunity to black students; the school had a national reputation. The school was expanded as Saints Academy and Junior College, and Saints College.

Another private school in the city, Central Holmes Christian School (formerly Central Holmes Academy, was established in 1967 as a segregation academy).

Notable people

• Chalmers Archer, author, academic and U.S. Special Forces veteran
• John C. Black, member of the United States House of Representatives from 1893 to 1895 and Medal of Honor recipient
• Lee Cooper, blues guitarist
• Minnie M. Cox, postmaster and teacher
• Leonard B. Cresswell, major general in the United States Marine Corps and recipient of the Navy Cross
• Buford Ellington, Governor of Tennessee from 1959 to 1963 and 1967 to 1971
• Malachi Favors, jazz bassist
• B.B. King, musician, lived in Lexington
• Ronald Kirklin, Quartermaster General and Commandant of the Quartermaster School at Fort Lee, Virginia from 2014 to 2016
• John R. Land, Louisiana Supreme Court Justice from 1921 to 1941
• Alexander Lane (1857–1911), Illinois state representative and physician, born in Lexington
• Arenia Mallory, African-American educator and activist, principal of the Saints Academy and founder of its junior college
• Charles Harrison Mason, founder of the Church of God in Christ, an evangelical church which grew to have a national presence
• Melany Neilson, author
• William Nichols, architect
• Edmond Favor Noel, attorney, Governor of Mississippi 1908–1912; son of Leland Noel, an early planter in Holmes County who migrated from Virginia and became one of the largest slaveholders before the Civil War
• Milton L. Olive III, (1946-1965) United States Army Soldier and recipient of the Medal of Honor
• Lonnie Pitchford, blues musician born in Lexington
• Monroe Saffold Jr., American bodybuilder, first place Masters Mr. America AAU, tall division 1990
• Hazel Brannon Smith (1914–1994), owner and publisher of the Lexington Advertiser and other local newspapers; first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing
• Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers, Chicago blues guitarist
• James Snedden, Medal of Honor recipient during the Civil War
• Neely Tucker, journalist, author
• Willie West, former National Football League defensive back
• Hattie Winston, actress in television, film and theatre

Images for kids

• 

  Selling fish on Saturday afternoon in Lexington, 1939. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.

See also

In Spanish: Lexington (Misisipi) para niños