Clay County, Mississippi

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

County Seat: West Point
Year Organized: 1872
Square Miles: 409

Court House:

P.O. Box 815
County Courthouse
West Point, MS 39773-0815

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Clay is named for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Henry Clay. Henry Clay, Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was a nineteenth-century American statesman and orator who represented Kentucky in both the House of Representatives and Senate.

He was a dominant figure in both the First Party System to 1824, and the Second Party System after that. Known as "The Great Compromiser" and "The Great Pacifier" for his ability to bring others to agreement, he was the founder and leader of the Whig Party and a leading advocate of programs for modernizing the economy, especially tariffs to protect industry, a national bank, and internal improvements to promote canals, ports and railroads.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Clay County was erected May 12, 1871, during the administration of Governor Alcorn, and marks the southern boundary line of the old Chickasaw Indian territory. It was originally organized from parts of Chickasaw, Lowndes, Monroe and Oktibbeha Counties, and named Colfax after Schuyler Colfax, a Republican. In 1876, after the Democrats came into power and had thrown off carpetbag rule, the name was changed to Clay in honor of the great Kentuckian.

Its county seat is West Point, located at the junction of three lines of railway—the Illinois Central, the Southern, and the Mobile and Ohio. Within easy distance of the Alabama coal fields and possessed of excellent railroad facilities.. There are no other large towns in the county, though there are a number of thriving small ones, among which may be mentioned Cedar Bluff, Pheba, Montpelier, Abbott, Griffith and Siloam. The Tombigbee River washes a part of its eastern border and the Tibbee, Line Houlka, Sun, Chewah and Chuquatonchee creeks, tributaries of the Tombigbee, afford it ample water. The three lines of railway above mentioned give the county excellent shipping facilities and many northern settlers are now coming into this region.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 416 square miles (1,077 km²), of which, 409 square miles (1,058 km²) of it is land and 7 square miles (19 km²) of it (1.79%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Chickasaw County (north)
Monroe County (northeast)
Lowndes County (southeast)
Oktibbeha County (south)
Webster County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- West Point (County Seat)

city

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."