ow is your chance to follow your own trail, to a place where the hours and days flow as easily as the currents of the beautiful and beautifully preserved Strong River, where Native Americans once communed with religious spirits and now city dwellers escape to commune with nature and revive their own spirits.  Where grizzled traders once came for their livelihoods, today’s modern families come for lively fun—canoeing, camping, fishing, picnicking and more.

You see, it isn’t that we’ve stopped time in Simpson County; we’ve just made friends with it, and you will, too, relishing every moment, whether you’re exploring the natural wonders of D’Lo Waterpark or discovering Simpson County’s delightfully picturesque downtowns; whether you’re hunting game or hunting bargains or simply seeking a getaway from ordinary, mass-produced ho-hum.

Do we take life easy here?  Sure, but mostly we just don’t take for granted a very special way of life.  We work hard, we play fair, and we’ve preserved the best—without preservatives.  Most of all, we love to share our great county with others.  Our hospitality is unmatched:  You won’t find friendlier folks anywhere else in the world. 

So come on.  We’re easy to find, just beyond the beaten path.  What you’ll enjoy is far beyond the ordinary.

ake a joyful noise, the Psalms say, and in Braxton there is joyfulness aplenty at the success of Piney Woods School.  More than a century old, the school has helped uplift African American youths to great achievement in all walks of life, particularly in music.  Graduates include members of the legendary blues band, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, as well as the famous International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the nation’s first integrated all-women’s band.

In 1909, when Dr. Laurence Jones came to the area with his idea of founding a school, he found warm support among Braxton citizens.  That was only natural; Piney Woods School was a good fit as the neighbor of a community which had arisen in the late 1800’s around a physician’s clinic, and which had already founded one of the few high schools in Mississippi at the time.

In the 1920’s, the “Braxton cyclone” did its worst, but the town survived, if only barely, weathering the storm with stoic grace, and today, with its friendliness and hospitality—its ability to take joy in the simple things—Braxton offers the kind old fashioned take on life that make loving this historic little town a breeze.

e l’eau sans potable: French words written on the ancient map showing the confluence of the Strong River and Sellers’ Creek. De l’eau, meaning water, and sans potable meaning un-drinkable. The Choctaws had already named the Strong River “Bogue Homie” or “Bitter Creek.”  Sound forbidding?  These beautiful waters were anything but. The Choctaws were drawn to the River again and again for religious rites, and today nature lovers and those simply looking for a refreshing getaway find D’Lo sweet solace for a mass-produced world.

In fact, you’ll want to drink it in every last inch of the natural paradise of D’Lo Water Park on the Strong River.  Swimming, canoeing, fishing, camping, with exactly the right amenities.  While those early explorers spoke French, as you explore this world apart you’ll need a whole new language of superlatives.

After the Civil War, when the U.S. Post Office rejected the “Millhaven” as the town’s name, De l’eau was pulled from that map, submitted and accepted, then shortened to D’Lo.  Appropriate that our name should come from a map, since D’Lo is still a great place to get your bearings.

rue, life used to be a grind in Magee, or rather there was a lot of grinding back in 1840 when Willie Magee built his grist mill on Little Goodwater Creek.  Willie was a descendant of Phil Magee who, along with Arthur Mangum, first settled the area in the 1820s, when land around here could be had for 12 ½ cents an acre. 

Today, land deeds are not so cheap, and we measure our own deeds by their results.  Our kids, for example.  No more milling corn here; instead we are honing the talents and character of our youths with sports programs and parks that are second to none.  Our kids have places to play year-round, whether at the well-groomed fields of the Sportsplex, the well-equipped YMCA, the City Park or McNair Springs, where a natural spring flows through the park, which includes a nature trail and pavilion, in addition to sports fields. 

Of course, with our industrial parks, municipal airport and modern health facilities, Magee is taking care of business, too, but our business first and foremost will always be our people.  Nowadays, when it’s modern life that’s the grind, Magee is the answer.

endenhall was first named Edna after the wife of a developer, but “Edna” is also the English version of “Eithne,” Irish-Gaelic for “kernel,” and the first settlers who migrated here from Georgia and the Carolinas farmed sheep, sweet potatoes and corn. 

Nowadays the sheep don’t flock to Mendenhall, people do, looking for the good life, grown from the ground up.  Because we’ve never lost our knack for cultivating not just good crops but good people, like a noted novelist and a Miss Mississippi or two.  Good ideas have a way of germinating here, too, like those cigar boxes that grow into guitars; like the Mendenhall Ministries, a vital resource that grew out of the civil rights movement; like the Alice E. Davis Park that grew into a delightful downtown refuge with gazebo and stage. 

And then there’s the one-of-a-kind Mendenhall Grocery and Grain, once a warehouse for tobacco, flour and cotton, now M G & G, a showplace for Mississippi-made products.  Come browse the shelves, then browse our beguiling downtown, with historic buildings like the Thames House, now City Hall.  You know what they say:  You can’t fight City Hall.  So go ahead.  Surrender to our charms.