Tunica County, Mississippi

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

County Seat: Tunica
Year Organized: 1836
Square Miles: 455

Court House:

P.O. Box 639
County Courthouse
Tunica, MS 38676-0639

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Tunica is named for the Tunica Native American people

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Tunica County was established February 9, 1836, and is one of the twelve counties formed in that year from the Chickasaw Indian cession of 1832. It was named for the Tunica Indian tribe, the word meaning “the people.” As originally established, Tunica County embraced an area of about 19 townships, or 684 square miles, and its limits were thus defined:

“Beginning at the northwestern corner of Tallahatchie County, and running thence due north to the dividing line between the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of Indians; thence with the said dividing line to the Mississippi River; thence up the said river, to the point where the line between townships 2 and 3 intersects the same; thence with the said township line, to the line between ranges 9 and 10 west; thence south with the said range line, and from its termination in a direct line to the northern boundary of Tallahatchie County, and thence west with said northern boundary, to the beginning.”

In 1873 it surrendered a part of its territory to Tate, and another portion in 1877 to Quitman.

Tunica, the present county seat, was built up on the line of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railroad and was a substantial center of trade. Evansville, Hollywood, Robinsonville, Maud and Dundee are some of the other stations along the line of that road. On the Mississippi River are two of the early county seats, or what remains of them. Commerce is the oldest town in the county, but did not compare as a flourishing river center with Austin, the other county seat. At one time the latter had a population of 2,000 people, with a large river and inland trade.

Tunica has the distinction of having within its bounds the place where Hernando De Soto discovered the Mississippi River, which, following authentic original records and historians generally, was at or near Commerce Landing, situated on the old “Willow Point.”

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 481 square miles (1,245 km²), of which, 455 square miles (1,178 km²) of it is land and 26 square miles (67 km²) of it (5.40%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Crittenden County, Arkansas (north)
DeSoto County (northeast)
Tate County (east)
Panola County (southeast)
Quitman County (south)
Coahoma County & Phillips County, Arkansas (southwest)
Lee County, Arkansas (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Sledge	town	Incorporated Area
- Tunica (County Seat)	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."