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What’s New
Biloxi Lighthouse: One of the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s signature landmarks. Offers visitors daily tours to see waterlines from hurricanes dating back over 100 years.
Corinth Contraband Camp: Site of early freedom for African-Americans during the Civil War. Features a quarter-mile walkway commemorating events that changed the lives of people considered contraband of war. Corinth.
Healthworks! Kids’ Museum: Get inside the brain of a teenager or explore the coarser side of human biology at North Mississippi’s children’s health-education centre. Tupelo.
Attractions
Mississippi Tourism Division
Delta Blues Museum: Preserves, interprets and encourages a deep interest in this uniquely American music. Clarksdale.
DeSoto County Museum: Showcases local history, including Hernando DeSoto’s 1541 explorations, Jerry Lee Lewis’s piano and a restored log cabin from 1850. Hernando.
Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center: Houses exhibits that explain military and civilian experiences during the Civil War, as well as exhibits relevant to African-American heritage.
Visit Mississippi
Mississippi Armed Forces Museum: Features significant historical exhibits related to the military contributions of locals from 1798 to the present. Piney Woods.
B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center: Exhibitions and educational programs designed as a tribute to local legendary blues musician B. B. King. Indianola.
Events
Mississippi Tourism Division
World Catfish Festival (April), Belzoni.
Juke Joint Festival (April), Clarksdale.
Jubilee! Jam (June), Jackson.
B.B. King Homecoming Festival (June), Indianola.
Choctaw Indian Fair (July), Choctaw.
Mississippi State Fair (October 6 to 17, 2010) Jackson.
Places
Vicksburg National Military Park: Established in 1899; commemorates the 47-day Civil War siege and defence of Vicksburg in 1863. Includes Vicksburg National Cemetery.
The Natchez Trace Parkway: First appearing over 8,000 years ago as a buffalo and Indian trail, the path was used by explorer Hernando DeSoto in his search for gold around 1540.
Visit Mississippi
Mississippi Blues Trail: Marked by more than 100 historical markers and interpretive sites that feature high-resolution maps, photographs, text and downloadable sounds and music of the area.
Tupelo: Trace the footsteps of the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley. Attractions include Presley`s childhood home which features a museum and chapel, and the actual Assembly of God Church building where he first performed Gospel music.
Hidden Gems
Hattiesburg: Emerging arts community of beautiful galleries, boutiques, outstanding restaurants, the elegant Saenger Theater and the state-of-the-art Armed Forces Museum at Camp Shelby.
Walter Anderson Museum of Art: Dedicated to the works of Walter Inglis Anderson (1903-1965), whose depictions of the plants, animals, and people of the Mississippi Gulf Coast have placed him among the forefront of 20th-century American painters.
Neshoba County Fair: The nation’s largest campground fair and location for racing programs, an open-air market, carnival rides and political speeches.
Did You Know?
Gautier
State Motto: By Valor and Arms
State Flower: Magnolia
State Bird: Mockingbird
Fast Facts
Region: THE SOUTH
America’s Byways: Lower Mississippi Great River Road, Natchez Trace Parkway.
Connecting Flights Via: Atlanta, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Memphis
Info: Mississippi Development Authority, Division of Tourism
1-866-SEE.MISS (733-6477)
www.visitmississippi.org