Sharkey County, Mississippi

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

County Seat: Rolling Fork
Year Organized: 1876
Square Miles: 428

Court House:

P.O. Box 218
County Courthouse
Rolling Fork, MS 39159-0218

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Sharkey is named for provisional Governor of Mississippi William L. Sharkey.William Lewis Sharkey (July 12, 1798 – April 29, 1873) was an American judge and politician from Mississippi. He was born in Sumner County, Tennessee, where he and his family lived until they moved to Warren County, Mississippi, when he was six years of age. In 1822, he was accepted into the bar at Natchez. Three years later he moved to Vicksburg and after a few years was elected for a single term to the state House of Representatives (1828-1829). He served briefly in 1832 as a circuit court judge before being elected a justice to the state supreme court later that year where he remained for 18 years until his resignation. Sharkey was appointed to the office of Secretary of War by U.S. President Millard Fillmore in 1851, but declined.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Sharkey County , which could be called one of the black counties, was organized March 29, 1876, and was named for Judge William L. Sharkey, provisional governor of the State in 1865. It was originally carved from territory belonging to the counties of Warren, Washington and Issaquuena. In 1918, it relinquished a part of its area to the new county of Humphreys, to the northeast. Deer Creek runs entirely through Sharkey County.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 435 square miles (1,126 km²), of which, 428 square miles (1,108 km²) of it is land and 7 square miles (19 km²) of it (1.65%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Washington County (north)
Humphreys County (northeast)
Yazoo County (east)
Issaquena County (south & west)

Cities and Towns:

- Anguilla	town	Incorporated Area
- Cary	town	Incorporated Area
- Rolling Fork (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."