Get your fill of Kudzu jelly, candles, locally made soaps, miniature cotton bales and all the postcards of local sites you can handle at the Mississippi Gift Shop. We would be happy to ship! Call us at (662) 252-3669 to purchase.
Mississippi Ceramic Latte Mug (14oz) $12.00
Cotton Railroad Through Mississippi: The Mississippi Central and the Illinois Central
This new book by Milton Winter, “Cotton Railroad Through Mississippi: The Mississippi Central and the Illinois Central”, is the first full-scale, authoritative history of a key link in America’s transportation network from the years just before the Civil War until the 21st century. Price 15.00.
Cotton Bales
Large Cotton Bale. This is an authentic bale of cotton in miniature – grown and “baled” in Mississippi. This measures @ 7” x 4 ½” x 3 ½” and would make a great bookend or shelf display. Price: $14.00
From the Chickasaw Cession to Yoknapatawhpa by Hubert McAlexander
From the Chickasaw Cession to Yoknapatawhpa: Historical Essays on North Mississippi is a collection of essays and documents written by Mississippians over the years, a mosaic that tells the story of the settlement and growth of North Mississippi and explores its literary significance. The fullest of the five sections is devoted to the Chickasaw Cession. We see the mix of native people and settlers, and learn the early history of the twelve counties. The second section offers views of the fabled ante-bellum Plantation Period, and the third, of the Civil War in three counties. The last two sections are devoted to the texture of life, the issue of race, and the region’s literary significance, particularly through Faulkner’s creation of Yoknapatawpha. Price 24.95.
“The Artist’s Sketch” A Biography Kate Freeman Clark
Holly Springs native Kate Freeman Clark (1875–1957) quietly created over 1,000 paintings during her lifetime—yet her talent remained largely unknown until after her passing at the age of 81. It was only then that the community discovered she had been a painter of remarkable skill and stature.
In her will, Clark made a stunning gift to her hometown: she left behind her family home, the entire collection of paintings—which had been stored in a New York warehouse for over 40 years—and the funds to establish a gallery in her name. Her generous legacy lives on in the Kate Freeman Clark Art Gallery, a cultural treasure for Holly Springs and beyond.
📚 Price: $35.00
(Perfect for art lovers, historians, and supporters of Mississippi heritage)
“The Prodigal Daughter” A Biography of Sherwood Bonner
Sometimes enigmatic, often bold, Sherwood Bonner (born Katharine Bonner McDowell, 1849–1883) challenged the expectations placed on women of her time. Raised in the planter aristocracy of Holly Springs, Mississippi, Bonner married at 22 and became a mother soon after. But within two years, she made a radical choice—leaving her husband, child, and hometown behind to pursue education and a literary career in Boston.
There, she found a mentor in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and moved among progressive circles that included James Redpath, famed radical and John Brown ally. In her short but prolific life, Bonner wrote short stories, the novel Like Unto Like (1878), and the novella The Valours (1881). Though largely forgotten after her early death, her voice has been rediscovered in recent decades.
This carefully researched biography, first published in 1981, brought new attention to Bonner’s life and work, offering insight into a woman who defied convention in pursuit of her creative calling.
📚 Price: $24.99
(An essential read for lovers of Southern literature, women’s history, and forgotten voices)
“Holly Springs” Van Dorn the CSS Arkansas and the Raid that Saved Vicksburg
Midway between Memphis and New Orleans along the Mississippi River, Vicksburg was essential to both Confederate and Union campaigns. With both sides bent on claiming the city, Vicksburg, and the fate of the nation, lay in the balance. General Ulysses S. Grant began his campaign on the city in November 1862, but he was forced to abandon the operation in December when the fiery General Earl Van Dorn made a daring raid on Grant’s main supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi. With the help of the CSS Arkansas, Van Dorn’s single day raid on Grant’s supply base saved Vicksburg from Grant’s forces for an entire year. Historian Brandon H. Beck recounts the tactics, leaders, and legends involved in this exciting, if overlooked, chapter of Civil War history. Price $19.99
“It Happened Here” True Stories of Holly Springs
A most intriguing collection of stories, originally published in 1950 by Olga Reed Pruitt, a writer with the old Memphis Press Scimitar. Ms. Pruitt, taken by the town of Holly Spring’s history, character and the plethora of stories involving places, people – both famous and infamous and events which comprise the unique tapestry that is our town. Price: $5.00
“Holly Springs Mississippi to the Year 1878”
By William Baskerville Hamilton who researched and chronicled the many aspects of Holly Springs’ early settlement and its architectural, social, political and military history until the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, from which many feel, the town never quite recovered from. Price: $5.00
“A Southern Tapestry” Marshall County, Mississippi, 1835 – 2000
By Dr. Hubert H. McAlexander, who through this well-researched tome with numerous photographs and illustrations, gives us the definitive history of Marshall County, Mississippi by weaving an insider’s perspective on its almost defiant beginnings with the intertwined social history of a proud old plantation town, told through its myriad stories of valor, stories scandal and tragedy. its significant architectural development. Price: $20.00
Holly Springs Historic Architecture Series by Hamilton Brooks
Fine series of hand drawings done in 1990 of Holly Springs’ renowned inventory of historic architecture. Comes in a set of three frame-able prints; most are signed & numbered by the artist.
“The Class of 1912”
By Inez Berryhill Adams, a graduate of the Mississippi Synodical College (MSC), an educational institution that was a prominent fixture in Holly Springs from 1903 until 1938, when it merged with Belhaven College in Jackson. MSC was a world to itself here in Holly Springs for the young women who attended there and Ms. Adams’ memoir gives us a view into that world which seems so remote from our time today. Price: $9.95