TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

RACES: Mound Bayou

Bolivar County lies down on the rich delta lands of Mississippi opposite the mouth of the Arkansas River. In 1887, when the track of what is now the dinky Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad was laid, Bolivar's rich bottomlands were an uninhabited jungle. The railroad, eager for customers along the route, but fearing that white men would die off under the hot summer sun, decided to try Negroes. Isaiah T. Montgomery, a onetime slave of Jefferson Davis, and his cousin Benjamin T. Green were induced to start a colony. Thus was founded the...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.