Day Trips: Corinth, Mississippi

The first time I heard of Corinth (we called it Car-wrinth), it was in connection with an elopement. It seems Mississippi had marriage laws that didn't require a waiting period, unlike the ones in Tennessee and Alabama. So if you were drunk, with child, underage, just plain ignorant, or in a hurry for some other reason, you could go to Corinth, get married, and be home in time to feed the cows and chickens.

Corinth is about seventy miles from where we live, and we visit there occasionally. It is a beautiful little city, with a functioning combination of the old and the new.

When it was founded in 1853, the name of the town was Cross-City, because it was the junction for two railroads, the Mobile & Ohio and the Memphis & Charleston. W. E. Gibson, editor of the town's early newspaper, suggested the name be changed to Corinth, after the Greek city that also served as a crossroads.

Because of the railroads, Corinth played a strategic part for the Confederacy in the Civil War. There is a National Cemetery there for the causalities of the Siege of Corinth.

More tomorrow.

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