Notations on the Use of the Book

General Information contains practical information on the State as a whole. Specific information is given at the beginning of each city and tour description.

The Essay Section is designed to give a reasonably comprehensive survey of the State in its various aspects. Limitations of space forbid detailed treatments, but many persons, places, and events mentioned in the essays are discussed at some length in the city and tour descriptions. A classified bibliography is included in the book.

Cities and Towns. Twelve cities are given separate treatment in the section Main Street and Courthouse Square. Each of these cities represents some phase of the cultural, economic, historical, or political life of the State, or some one of its geographic divisions. At the end of each description is a list of the important nearby points of interest with cross-references to the tours on which these places are described.

Maps are provided for six of the cities. Points of interest are numbered in the descriptions to correspond with numbers on the maps. Conditions of admission vary from time to time; those given in this book are for February 1938. “(Open)” means “open at all reasonable hours, free of charge.”

Tours. Each tour is a description of towns and points of interest along a highway bearing a single Federal or State number. Cross-references are given for descriptions of cities in Main Street and Courthouse Square. For convenience in identifying inter-State routes, the names of the nearest out-of-State cities of importance are placed within parentheses in the tour headings.

Included in the main route description are the descriptions of minor routes branching from the main route; these are printed in smaller type.

All main route descriptions are written North to South and East to West but can be followed quite as easily in the reverse directions. The names of railroads paralleling highways are noted in the tour headings; thus railroad travelers can use the route descriptions quite as easily as can motorists.

Mileages are cumulative, beginning at the northernmost or easternmost points on the main highways. Where long routes have been divided into sections, mileages have been started afresh at the beginning of each section. Mileages on side routes are counted from the junctions with the main routes. All mileages are necessarily relative; minor reroutings of roads and individual driving habits—such as manner of rounding curves and of passing other cars—will produce variations between the listed mileages and those shown on speedometers.

Mississippi is engaged (1938) in an extensive program of highway development, which involves some highway rerouting in order to eliminate curves and to take advantage of better subsoil for roadbeds. For this reason some of the tour routings and mileages of February 1938 will be inaccurate within a year; if difficulty is experienced in finding points of interest, travelers should make inquiries locally.

Those who have already selected the routes they wish to follow should consult the tour key-map and the tour table of contents to find the descriptions they want; those who want to find the descriptions of, or routes leading to, specific towns and points of interest should consult the index.