Marion County, Mississippi

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

County Seat: Columbia
Year Organized: 1811
Square Miles: 542

Court House:

215 Broad Street, Suite 2
County Courthouse
Columbia, MS 39429-2904

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Marion is named for American Revolutionary War guerilla leader Francis Marion, known as the Swamp Fox.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Marion County was established December 9, 1811, and was named for General Francis Marion (1732-1795) of South Carolina, the "Swamp Fox" of the American Revolution. It originally embraced a large territory including the counties of Lawrence and Pike, and parts of Covington, Lincoln, Lamar, Pearl River and Walthall.

Marion County was created from the old counties of Amite, Wayne and Franklin, and its original limits were defined as follows:

"All that tract of country beginning on the line of demarcation where the fourth range of townships east of Pearl River intersects the said line, thence west with said line of demarcation, to the sixty-mile post, east of the Mississippi, being the first range of townships west of Tansopiho, thence north on said line of townships to the Choctaw boundary line, thence along said Choctaw boundary line to the fourth range of townships east of Pearl River, thence with said range to the beginning."

Two of the prominent early settlers of the region were Dougal McLaughlin and John Ford, both of whom represented the county in the Constitutional Convention of 1817. The former was a native of South Carolina, descended from an old Highland Scotch family, and a man distinguished for his probity and sterling worth.

In 1890, Marion gave a portion of its territory to Pearl River County, another part to Lamar in 1904, and still another slice to the newly organized county of Walthall in 1914.

Columbia is the county seat on the east bank of the Pearl River. It is near the center of the county.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 549 square miles (1,421 km²), of which, 542 square miles (1,405 km²) of it is land and 6 square miles (16 km²) of it (1.14%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Jefferson Davis County (north)
Lamar County (east)
Pearl River County (southeast)
Washington Parish, Louisiana (south)
Walthall County (west)
Lawrence County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Columbia (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."