Mayersville, Mississippi
| Mayersville, Mississippi | |
|---|---|
| Town | |
 Location of Mayersville, Mississippi |
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 Mayersville, Mississippi
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| Coordinates: 32°54′4″N 91°3′2″W / 32.90111°N 91.05056°WCoordinates: 32°54′4″N 91°3′2″W / 32.90111°N 91.05056°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Mississippi |
| County | Issaquena |
| Area | |
| • Total | 1.1 sq mi (2.9 km2) |
| • Land | 1.1 sq mi (2.9 km2) |
| • Water | 0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2) |
| Elevation | 105 ft (32 m) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 547 |
| • Estimate (2016) | 541 |
| • Density | 500/sq mi (190/km2) |
| Time zone | Central (CST) (UTC-6) |
| • Summer (DST) | CDT (UTC-5) |
| ZIP code | 39113 |
| Area code(s) | 662 |
| FIPS code | 28-46000 |
| GNIS feature ID | 0673260 |
Mayersville is a town on the east bank of the Mississippi River, and the county seat for Issaquena County, Mississippi. It is located in the Mississippi Delta, a region known for cotton cultivation in the antebellum era. Once the trading center for the county, the town was superseded when railroads were built into the area. The population of the majority-black town has declined to 795 at the 2000 census and lower since then.
Native Americans had lived in this area since prehistoric times. The Mayersville Archeological Site, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, is on privately owned land. It contains the remains of earthwork mounds constructed primarily in the Mayersville phase (A.D. 1200-1400) of the earlier Mississippian culture. A 1950 survey by Philip Phillips of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology reported eleven ancient mounds. By the time the site was nominated by the state to the National Register of Historic Places, two mounds had been completely destroyed, a third one was nearly gone, three were reduced in size by plowing, and five remained nearly as described. Three mounds had enclosed a large plaza measuring roughly 170 by 240 meters. The fourth side was bounded by three mounds. Among these was Mound I, which was found to have been re-occupied from 1400 to 1600, perhaps by the succeeding Choctaw people. A European-American family cemetery associated with a 19th-century plantation was developed on Mound A.
The first record of non-Native settlement was in 1830, when European-American Ambrose Gipson purchased a large body of land along the river and founded 'Gipson's Landing'. This soon became the port on the Mississippi River for shipping out the cotton of Issaquena and Sharkey counties. It attracted shifting populations of river crews, gamblers, and traders, as well as show boats during low water times. The shipping records for David Mayer, who owned nearby Mout Level Plantation, show that river freight was shipped from the port via steamboat to points in Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi.
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