Cotton Gin Port, Mississippi

Geography

Cotton Gin Port was located at 33°58′15″N 88°32′35″W on the east bank of the Tombigbee river.

History

Cotton Gin Port was the first town in north Mississippi, although initially it was part of Marion County in the Alabama Territory. The new demarcation lines of 1820-21 put it in Mississippi. The site was located on the east bank of the Tombigbee River at a crossing of vital Indian trails. It was a base of expeditions of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1736 and Vaudreuil in 1752. The Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham Railroad caused extinction as the townfolk moved to the new town of Amory.

The early U.S. government built a cotton gin in 1801 at Cotton Gin Port as part of a "plan of civilization" for the local Chickasaw Indians, and soon became recognized as a Chickasaw Indian trading post. A road, Gaines Trace, was built to the town in 1811 and 1812. This road ran from close to Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River to Cotton Gin Port, where it crossed the Tombigbee; it then proceeded south to Fort Stoddert.

The ruins of the old town can still be found between the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the Tombigbee River, and relics from the old settlement can be seen at the Amory Municipal Museum. Chief Levi Colbert is said to have lived on the bluff west of Cotton Gin Port, near the old cotton gin where there was a large spreading oak known as the council tree.