Benton County, Mississippi

Benton County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Ashland
Year Organized: 1870
Square Miles: 407

Court House:

P.O. Box 218
County Courthouse
Ashland, MS 38603-0218

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Benton is named for U.S. Senator from Missouri Thomas Hart Benton. Thomas Hart Benton nicknamed "Old Bullion" (March 14, 1782 – April 10, 1858), was a U.S. Senator from Missouri and a staunch advocate of westward expansion of the United States. He served in the Senate from 1821 to 1851, becoming the first member of that body to serve five terms. Benton was an architect and champion of westward expansion by the United States, a cause that became known as Manifest Destiny.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Benton County is another Mississippi county organized during the reconstruction times, being organized from parts of Marshall and Tippah counties, July 15, 1870, during the administration of Governor Alcorn. Its name honors the memory of General Samuel Benton, who was killed in the War for Southern Independence at the battle of Ezra Church, near Atlanta, July 28, 1864. Its early annals are identical with those of the region from which its territory was carved.

Ashland, the county seat, is situated at the center of the county and is a small incorporated village of 200 inhabitants, named for the home of Henry Clay. Besides Ashland, there are a number of other small towns in the county, the more important of which are Lamar and Michigan City on the Illinois Central railroad and Hickory Flat and Winborn on the Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham division of the San Francisco & St. Louis system. The Illinois Central line cuts across the northwestern corner of Benton County, and the latter railroad through its southwestern corner. Ashland, the county seat, has no railroad connection.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 409 square miles (1,058 km²), of which, 407 square miles (1,054 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (5 km²) of it (0.46%) is water.

The headwaters of the Wolf River meander and braid their way north and west across northern Benton County from Baker's Pond, the river's source spring (highest origin of continuous flow) in the Holly Springs National Forest approximately 1 mile southwest of where U.S. Highway 72 passes into Tippah County, Mississippi. The Wolf passes into Fayette County, Tennessee between Michigan City (on the Mississippi side) and La Grange, Tennessee.

Neighboring Counties:

Hardeman County, Tennessee (northeast)
Tippah County (east)
Union County (south)
Marshall County (west)
Fayette County, Tennessee (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Ashland (County Seat)	town	Incorporated Area
- Hickory Flat	town	Incorporated Area
- Snow Lake Shores	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."