Tupelo, Mississippi facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tupelo, Mississippi
City
City of Tupelo
Main Street in Tupelo
Motto(s):  "All-America City"
Location of Tupelo in Lee County
Tupelo, Mississippi Location in Mississippi Show map of Mississippi Tupelo, Mississippi Location in the United States Show map of the United States
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Lee
Districts	1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Incorporated	July 20, 1870 (153 years ago) (1870-07-20)
Named for	Tupelo
Government
• Type	Mayor–Council
Area
• City	64.68 sq mi (167.53 km2)
• Land	64.38 sq mi (166.75 km2)
• Water	0.30 sq mi (0.78 km2)
Elevation	279 ft (85 m)
Population  (2010)
• City	34,546
• Estimate  (2019)	38,312
• Density	595.06/sq mi (229.75/km2)
• Metro	140,460 (US: 8th)
Time zone	UTC−6 (CST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−5 (CDT)
ZIP code(s)	38801, 38804, 38826, 38866
Area code(s)	662
FIPS code	28-74840
GNIS feature ID	678931

Tupelo is a city in, and the county seat of, Lee County, Mississippi, United States. With an estimated population of 38,300, Tupelo is the sixth-largest city in Mississippi and is considered a commercial, industrial, and cultural hub of North Mississippi.

Tupelo was incorporated in 1866, although the area had earlier been settled as "Gum Pond" along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. On February 7, 1934, Tupelo became the first city to receive power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, thus giving it the nickname "The First TVA City". Much of the city was devastated by a major tornado in 1936 that still ranks as one of the deadliest tornadoes in American history. Following electrification, Tupelo boomed as a regional manufacturing and distribution center and was once considered a hub of the American furniture manufacturing industry. Although many of Tupelo's manufacturing industries have declined since the 1990s, the city has continued to grow due to strong healthcare, retail, and financial service industries. Tupelo is the smallest city in the United States that is the headquarters of more than one bank with over $10 billion in assets.

Tupelo has a deep connection to Mississippi's music history, being known as the birthplace of Elvis Presley and Diplo as well as the origin of the group Rae Sremmurd. The city is home to multiple art and cultural institutions, including the Elvis Presley Birthplace and the 10,000-seat BancorpSouth Arena, the largest multipurpose indoor arena in Mississippi. Tupelo is the only city in the Southern United States to be named an All-America City five times, most recently in 2015. Its Main Street program, Downtown Tupelo Main Street Association, was the winner of the national Main Street's Great American Main Street Award in 2020.

The Tupelo micropolitian area contains Lee, Itawamba, and Pontotoc counties and had a population of 140,081 in 2017.

History

European colonization

Indigenous peoples lived in the area for thousands of years. The historic Chickasaw and Choctaw, both Muskogean-speaking peoples of the Southeast, occupied this area long before European encounter.

French and British colonists traded with these indigenous peoples and tried to make alliances with them. The French established towns in Mississippi mostly on the Gulf Coast. At times, the European powers came into armed conflict. On May 26, 1736 the Battle of Ackia was fought near the site of the present Tupelo; British and Chickasaw soldiers repelled a French and Choctaw attack on the then-Chickasaw village of Ackia. The French, under Louisiana governor Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, had sought to link Louisiana with Acadia and the other northern colonies of New France.

In the early 19th century, after years of trading and encroachment by European-American settlers from the United States, conflicts increased as the US settlers tried to gain land from these nations. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act and authorized the relocation of all the Southeast Native Americans west of the Mississippi River, which was completed by the end of the 1830s.

In the early years of settlement, European-Americans named this town Gum Pond, supposedly due to its numerous tupelo trees, known locally as blackgum. The city still hosts the annual Gumtree Arts Festival.

Civil War and post-war development

During the Civil War, Union and Confederate forces fought in the area in 1864 in the Battle of Tupelo. Designated the Tupelo National Battlefield, the war site is administered by the National Park Service (NPS). In addition, the Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield, about ten miles north, commemorates another Civil War site.

After the war, a cross-state railroad for northern Mississippi was constructed through the town, which encouraged industry and growth. With expansion, the town changed its name to Tupelo, in honor of the battle. It was incorporated in 1870.

20th century to present

Railroad depot, circa 1900

Students clear the ruins of the segregated Lee County Training School, a month after the 1936 tornado

By the early twentieth century, the town had become a site of cotton textile mills, which provided new jobs for residents of the rural area. Under the state's segregation practices, the mills employed only white adults and children. Reformers documented the child workers and attempted to protect them through labor laws.

The last known bank robbery by Machine Gun Kelly, a Prohibition-era gangster, took place on November 30, 1932 at the Citizen’s State Bank in Tupelo; his gang netted $38,000. After the robbery, the bank’s chief teller said of Kelly, “He was the kind of guy that, if you looked at him, you would never thought he was a bank robber.”

During the Great Depression, Tupelo was electrified by the new Tennessee Valley Authority, which had constructed dams and power plants throughout the region to generate hydroelectric power for the large, rural area. The distribution infrastructure was built with federal assistance as well, employing many local workers. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt visited this "First TVA City".

In 2007, the nearby village of Blue Springs was selected as the site for Toyota's eleventh automobile manufacturing plant in the United States.

In 2013 Gale Stauffer of the Tupelo Police Department died in a shootout following a bank robbery, possibly the first officer killed in the line of duty in the Department's history.

Severe weather

The spring of 1936 brought Tupelo one of its worst-ever natural disasters, part of the Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak of April 5–6 in that year. The storm leveled 48 city blocks and over 200 homes, killing 216 people and injuring more than 700 persons. It struck at night, destroying large residential areas on the city's north side. Among the survivors was Elvis Presley, then a baby. Obliterating the Gum Pond neighborhood, the tornado dropped most of the victims' bodies in the pond. The storm has since been rated F5 on the modern Fujita scale. The Tupelo Tornado is recognized as one of the deadliest in U.S. history.

The Mississippi State Geologist estimated a final death toll of 233 persons, but 100 whites were still reported as hospitalized at the time. Because the white newspapers did not publish news about blacks until the 1940s and 1950s, historians have had difficulty learning the fates of blacks injured in the tornado. Based on this, historians now estimate the death toll was higher than in official records. Fire broke out at the segregated Lee County Training School, which was destroyed. Its bricks were salvaged for other uses.

The area is subject to tornadoes. In 2008 one rated an EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale struck the town. On April 28, 2014, a large tornado struck Tupelo and the surrounding communities, causing significant damage.

Geography and climate

Tupelo is located in northeast Mississippi, north of Columbus, on future Interstate 22 and U.S. Route 78, midway between Memphis, Tennessee (northwest) and Birmingham, Alabama (southeast).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 51.4 square miles (133 km²), of which 51.1 square miles (132 km²) is land and 0.3 square miles (0.78 km²) (0.62%) is water.

Tupelo has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa in the Köppen climate classification). Winters are short but cool, with sometimes-dramatic temperature swings. The warmest winter days can have high temperatures from 70 to 80 °F (21.1 to 26.7 °C) and low temperatures from 50 to 60 °F (10.0 to 15.6 °C). The coldest winter days usually have high temperatures below freezing (32 °F or 0 °C), and on rare occasions in the 20s Fahrenheit, with low temperatures near or below 12 °F or −11.1 °C and occasional lows in the single digits Fahrenheit or (rarely) lower still. In January, the coldest month, Tupelo’s average high temperature is near 50 °F or 10 °C and the average low about 30 °F or −1.1 °C. Day-to-day temperature variations are far less in the consistently hot and humid summer months. July and August high temperatures average near 90 °F or 32.2 °C, with low temperatures near 70 °F or 21.1 °C, with consistently high humidity and occasional thunderstorms, decreasing in frequency and intensity after June. The spring and fall months have generally pleasant temperatures, with average daily highs in the 70s Fahrenheit in April and October, but with shower and thunderstorm activity markedly more frequent, intense and severe from March to May, when severe thunderstorms and occasional tornadoes are significant threats.

Tupelo has an average annual precipitation of over 55 inches or 1,397.0 millimetres per year – virtually the highest found anywhere in the eastern U.S. outside isolated highland areas and the immediate Gulf Coast (i.e. New Orleans, LA and Pensacola, FL areas), with their heavier summer-season rainfalls. Tupelo’s average annual precipitation cycle demonstrates an unusual pattern for humid-subtropical climates worldwide. Many humid-subtropical areas (like the Shanghai, China area and the U.S. southeast Atlantic coast, i.e. Norfolk, VA; Cape Hatteras, NC; Charleston, SC; Savannah, GA) have highest monthly average precipitation amounts in July or August. In contrast, Tupelo has a prolonged "wetter season" from November to June, and a marked tendency toward drier conditions from late July through October. In terms of average monthly precipitation, Tupelo’s single wettest month is March, averaging 6.3 inches or 160.0 millimetres, with December a close second at 6.1 inches or 154.9 millimetres (for both, virtually the highest average found anywhere in the United States outside windward areas west of the Cascade Range and spotty highland areas). Spring (March to May) and to a lesser extent late fall/early winter (November-December) can be especially turbulent, with heavy-rain events and strong to occasionally violent showers and thunderstorms not uncommon. Tupelo lies near the heart of Dixie Alley, an area of the U.S. mid-South with a relatively high frequency of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. As elsewhere in Dixie Alley, the primary severe-weather season in Tupelo begins in late February, continuing into May, with a secondary “severe weather” peak in November–December. For example, Tupelo was hit hard by tornadoes in April 1936, and again in April 2014 (see “Severe Weather” section, above).

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 37,923 people, 14,751 households, and 9,648 families residing in the city.

2010 census

As of the census of 2010, there were 35,456 people, 13,602 households, and 8,965 families residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 58.7% White, 36.8% African American, 0.1% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 2.0% from other races, and 1.4% from two or more races. 3.5% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

2007-2011 ACS

According to the 2007–2011 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, there were 13,395 households, 42.8% were married couples living together, 2.6% had a male householder with no wife present, and 22.5% had a female householder with no husband present. 32.2% were non-family households, with 28.4% had a householder living alone and 3.8% having a householder not living alone. In addition, 39.7% of householders were living with related children under 18 and 60.3% with no related children under 18. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.08.

The median income for a household in the city was $39,415. The poverty rate was 20%.

Arts and culture

• The Tupelo Buffalo Park and Zoo is home to hundreds of animals and a large American bison herd.
• It is the headquarters of the historic Natchez Trace Parkway, which connects Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee. The parkway follows the route of the ancient Natchez Trace trail, a path used by indigenous peoples long before the Europeans came to the area.
• Nearby are the Pharr Mounds, an important Middle Woodland period complex of nearly 2000-year-old burial earthworks, dating from 1 to 200 AD.

Tupelo area map of historic battlefields and sites

• Civil War sites include Tupelo and Brices Cross Roads national battlefields.
• The Tupelo Automobile Museum is one of the largest of this type in North America. In 2003, it was designated as the official automobile museum of the state. It houses more than 150 rare automobiles, all from the personal collection of Frank K. Spain, who founded the channel WTVA.
• Since its founding in 1969, the Tupelo Community Theatre has produced more than 200 works. In 2001 and 2004, it won awards at the Mississippi Theatre Association's Community Theatre festival. In 2004 its production of Bel Canto won at the Southeastern Theatre Conference. TCT's home is the historic Lyric Theatre, built in 1912.
• The Tupelo Symphony Orchestra's season runs from September–April with concerts held at the Tupelo Civic Auditorium. The symphony's free annual July 4 outdoor concert at Ballard Park draws thousands of fans.
• In 2005, the Rotary Club sponsored a commission for a statue to honor Chief Piomingo, a leader of the Chickasaw people who had occupied this area. It was erected in front of the new Tupelo City Hall.
• The Oren Dunn City Museum tells the Story of Community Building through permanent exhibits and a collection of historic structures. The Special Exhibit Gallery provides a venue for a variety of traveling and temporary shows throughout the year.
• In June 1956 noted singer Elvis Presley returned to Tupelo for a concert at the Mississippi-Alabama State Fair & Dairy Show. This event was recreated at the eighth "Elvis Presley Festival" in Tupelo on June 3, 2006. The fairgrounds is part of Tupelo's Fairpark District. The documentary film, The Homecoming: Tupelo Welcomes Elvis Home, premiered at the 2006 festival.
• The Lee County Library has an annual lecture series featuring nationally known authors.
• Built in 1937, the Church Street Elementary School (for white students in the segregated system) was hailed as one of the most outstanding designs of its time. A scale model of this Art Moderne structure, described as "the ideal elementary school," was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
• The BancorpSouth Arena opened in 1993 and is a venue for large events.
• The Rap Group Rae Sremmurd comes from the city

Economy

Part of the child work force at Tupelo Cotton Mills, 1911. Photograph by Lewis Hine.

Historically, Tupelo served as a regional transportation hub, primarily due to its location at a railroad intersection. More recently, it has developed as strong tourism and hospitality sector based around the Elvis Presley birthplace and Natchez Trace. The city has also been successful at attracting manufacturing, retail and distribution operations (see 'Industry' section below).

Industry

• Tupelo is the headquarters of the North Mississippi Medical Center, the largest non-metropolitan hospital in the United States. It serves people in North Mississippi, northwest Alabama, and portions of Tennessee. The medical center was a winner of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2006 and 2012.
• The headquarters of two large banking institutions are located here: BancorpSouth, with approximately nearly $18 billion in assets (2019), and Renasant Bank, with assets of more than $12.7 billion (2019). Tupelo is the smallest U.S. city that hosts the headquarters of more than one bank with over $10 billion in assets.
• The city is a five-time "All-America City Award" winner.
• In 1963, Ralph J. Roberts, along with Daniel Aaron and Julian A. Brodsky purchased American Cable Systems, a small cable operator in Tupelo. American Cable was re-incorporated in Pennsylvania as Comcast.
• It has a large furniture manufacturing industry. The journalist Dennis Seid noted that furniture manufacturing in Northeast Mississippi, "provid[ed] some 22,000 jobs, or almost 13% of the region's employment... with a $732 million annual payroll... producing $2.25 billion worth of goods."
• Tecumseh, Heritage Home Group, Hancock Fabrics, Inc., Magnolia Fabrics, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi, H.M. Richards, JESCO Construction, MTD Products, Savings Oil Company (Dodge's Stores), and Cooper Tire & Rubber Company all operate or are headquartered in Tupelo and Lee County. Renin Corporation, a subsidiary of BBX Capital Corporation, operates a production centre in Tupelo which employed 50 but an expansion in 2017 expected to increase staffing to 100.

Education

Tupelo schools are served by the Tupelo Public School District. It participates in the Chromebook Distribution Policy, which means students in grades 6 to 12 are each given a school-owned Google Chromebook to use during the school year. In 2008, Sports Illustrated ranked the high school athletic department as the third-best high school athletic program in the nation. Tupelo High School is the largest public high school in Mississippi with a total of 1,931 students enrolled during the 2018–2019 school year.

For post-secondary education, the city has satellite campuses of the University of Mississippi, Itawamba Community College, and the Mississippi University for Women.

Infrastructure

Transportation

Rail

Tupelo Railroad Depot, circa 1900.

Into the late 1950s several long-distance trains served Tupelo. These included the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio's Gulf Coast Rebel (St. Louis - Mobile) and the Frisco Railroad's Kansas City-Florida Special (Kansas City - Memphis - Jacksonville), Memphian (Memphis - Birmingham) and its Sunnyland (Kansas City to the west; sections east to Birmingham and Pensacola). The Frisco's Southland ceased running in December 9, 1967, marking the last passenger train in northeast Mississippi.

Roads

U.S. Route 45, U.S. Route 78, U.S. Route 278, and Natchez Trace Parkway run through Tupelo; Interstate 22 runs north of the city on an east–west route.

Air

The city is served by Tupelo Regional Airport, with service on Contour Airlines.

Notable people

Elvis Presley Birthplace in Tupelo

Images for kids

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  Students clear the ruins of the segregated Lee County Training School, a month after the 1936 tornado

See also

In Spanish: Tupelo (Misisipi) para niños