Sense of place is a term that might have been coined for the Mississippi Hills, where the coin of the realm is not just sense of place but also of possibility. For the spectacularly varied possibilities of Hills attractions are pleasurable proof that the only thing that is predictable about the Mississippi Hills is its unpredictability. This is a place, after all, where a king was born in a one-room dwelling, where a gingerbread house led to a streetcar named desire, where the voiceless were born to howl and where a Forrest put an army up a tree. Time after time, in place after place, the impossible gave way to what now seems inevitable. And that, inevitably, makes for delightfully engaging and exciting attractions.Come to the Hills for inspiration: At Rowan Oak, where William Faulkner shored up his antebellum home and hammered out his masterpieces; at the John Grisham room where the world’s best selling thriller writer offers up a paper chase of personal documents; at Rust College, where the nation’s second African American college rose up on the site of a former slave market; at Mississippi University for Women, where the fairer sex took the lead at the nation’s first state-supported college for women.
The Birthplace of Elvis Presley, the tiny one-room wonder that packs a big emotional wallop, is a prime example that Hills attractions come in all sizes, from itsy bitsy bonsai trees of Brussells Bonsai to the massive mansions of Waverly and the Walters Place.
Hills attractions are about history and character — like that forged in the conflict at the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads and explored in depth at the Civil War Interpretive Center in Corinth and at the headquarters of the Natchez Trace Parkway. There’s the historically inspired architectural character of Starkville’s Cotton District, and the architectural character transformed by history in the now iconic Lyceum Building at the Ole Miss campus.
For a great time, the brilliant attractions of the Mississippi Hills are a perfect place to light. Why not light out today?
