Prentiss County, Mississippi

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

County Seat: Booneville
Year Organized: 1870
Square Miles: 415

Court House:

P.O. Box 477
County Courthouse
Booneville, MS 38829-0477

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Prentiss is named for Smith Prentiss, a famous speaker and debater.

Seargent Smith Prentiss (30 September 1808-1 July 1850) was the representative for Mississippi in the Twenty-fifth United States Congress. He attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and served from 1838 to 1839.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Prentiss County was created on April 15, 1870, during the administration of Governor Alcorn, from Tishomingo County, one of the numerous counties formed in 1836 from the Chickasaw cession of 1832. The County seat is Booneville and was named in honor of Sargent Smith Prentiss, the gifted statesman, jurist and orator.

By the year 1850 the region comprising this county had become thickly settled with an excellent class of emigrants from Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and northern Alabama. Many of the best settlers of the other counties of the State removed to Prentiss and like nearly all of the State the population was mainly Anglo-Saxon or British. The old village of Carrollville, founded in 1834, in what was then Tishomingo County, was once a thriving trade center for southeastern Tishomingo County. When the Mobile & Ohio railroad was completed to Baidwyn, two miles away, the latter town absorbed its business and population. During the early days before the railroad, all shipments were made to and from Memphis over 100 miles away by wagon, and later to and from Eastport on the Tennessee River. With the railroad came a shifting of trade centers, as well as increased population and wealth. The act creating the county established the seat of justice at Booneville, near the center of the county. It is the largest town in the county.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 418 square miles (1,083 km²), of which, 415 square miles (1,075 km²) of it is land and 3 square miles (9 km²) of it (0.79%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Alcorn County (north)
Tishomingo County (east)
Itawamba County (southeast)
Lee County (southwest)
Union County (west)
Tippah County (nothwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Booneville (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Jumpertown	town	Incorporated Area
- Marietta	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."