Vicksburg, Natchez and Columbus have more historical homes and buildings than Ridgeland does, but that doesn’t mean Ridgeland lacks history.
Chartered as a village in 1899 and incorporated as a town in 1947, Ridgeland’s history is rich with details from the Natchez Trace and Native Americans to the construction of Northpark mall and the Ross Barnett Reservoir.
Both the Ridgeland Historical Society, which meets quarterly, and the Ridgeland History Committee work to tell the history of the city, said Nancy Batson, vice president of the Ridgeland Historical Society and chairman of history committee.
During the city’s 125th year in 2024, its history became more accessible after the Ridgeland History Trail was unveiled and a virtual History Room debuted. Virtual tours of the history trail and history room can be viewed on the city’s website.
Special events such as a guided tour of Jessamine Cemetery, which is the final resting place for some of Ridgeland’s early settlers, and the inaugural Pecan Festival that was held at Freedom Ridge Park and celebrated the pecan as one of the first documented crops planted in the Highland Colony of Ridgeland and the city’s official tree.
The history trail, the history room and the events provide pathways for people to learn about how the city originated and has grown through the years, said Jim Woodrick, a member of both the city’s historical society and history committee.
“Not everyone understands or appreciates history in the same way,” he said. “Some people like museums. Some people like to read books. Some people are visual learners. You’ve got to appeal to all of them.”
Batson curated in time for Veterans Day a military history display with uniforms from numerous branches of service. The display is up through Nov. 21 at City Hall.
Ridgeland honors veterans with a program on Veterans Day and it seemed appropriate to have a military history display along with it, she said, noting that she also wanted to honor her father’s service.
A Vietnam veteran saw the exhibit of uniforms, she said, and donated a training manual and photos of himself in Vietnam to the history room, she said.
“He said he wanted them to have a home,” she said. “Vietnam was the forgotten war. It wasn’t celebrated when the veterans returned home.”
Batson became motivated to learn more about the city’s history when she moved to Ridgeland.
“I want generations to understand where they live,” she said. “Today is tomorrow’s history. We want to look at the future as well as what’s happened.”
The history room at City Hall, which came to be with the construction of the new City Hall in 2021, includes information about early settlers in Ridgeland and their families, she said, and is open to receiving additional information from anyone who can provide it.
“I’m looking for anything that people want to share with us and document with us,” Batson said. “I’m sure we haven’t touched on all of the original families and businesses. We welcome photographs and artifacts.”
Batson would like Explore Ridgeland to promote the history room to visitors from out of town so they can learn more.
Woodrick recognized the recreational trails in Ridgeland would be perfect locations for the interpretive markers and that they would provide a history lesson or two for people on a walk or jog.
“You want to put historical markers where they’re going to be read,” said Woodrick, who, a retired employee of the Mississippi Archives & History Department whose experience working with the state historical marker program was helpful in establishing the history trail. “The trails are perfect for that.”
The Ridgeland History Trail, which includes 22 historical markers, some of which are on the trail and some of which are off the trail, debuted last year during the city’s 125th anniversary.
While many towns in Mississippi were settled by southerners, that wasn’t the case in Ridgeland, as one of the markers notes.
“Ridgeland didn’t develop as a community like other towns in Mississippi,” Woodrick said. “In 1896, two investors from Chicago, Edward M. Treakle and Gorton W. Nichols, purchased a large parcel of land from the Yellowley family. In 1900, Nichols, R. H. Thompson and W. H. Shergold formed The Highland Colony Company and began marketing the property to settlers from the Midwestern states.
“Highland Colony Parkway is named for The Highland Colony Company that bought cheap farmland and offered it to people in the Midwest to buy and get a new start. A lot of the early mayors of Ridgeland were not from Mississippi but the Midwest.”
Some locations of the history markers might be surprising such as the one at Northpark.
“You might ask, ‘Why would you have a historical marker at Northpark mall,’” Woodrick said. “It had a tremendous impact on that part of Ridgeland, and it’s still in business in the face of malls closing across the country.”
Maps of the trail are available at City Hall, the Ridgeland Library and at Explore Ridgeland. The signs are grouped, with six signs in the Old Town area, five along Highland Colony Parkway and Colony Boulevard, three near the reservoir and others scattered across the city.
Woodrick thought it would take several years for the trail to debut due to the expense of the markers, but it didn’t.
The Ridgeland Tourism Commission agreed to pay the cost of the 22 trail markers, which amounted to approximately $30,000, said Kim Cooper, director of public relations for the city of Ridgeland.
Additional markers can be added to the trail, and there’s thought being given to how someone can request a marker be added, Woodrick said.
During the Jessamine Cemetery tour, Woodrick played the role of the Union colonel buried at the cemetery. He hopes that similar programs can be developed that will take place at points along the trail.
Woodrick would like the Ridgeland Historical Society to become involved with the Mississippi Historical Society.
Both Woodrick and Batson praise Cooper who chaired the 125th Anniversary Planning Committee and serves as one of the city liaisons to city’s historical society and history committee, for her creativity and interest in making the city’s history more visible. Members of the city’s 125th anniversary committee also played an important role.
The efforts to make Ridgeland’s history more visible have not gone unnoticed.
The Mississippi Historical Society gave the city an Award of Merit for the history Trace. The Mississippi Municipal League honored the city with an Excellence Award for its 125th anniversary celebration, which included the introduction of the history trail and more. Keep Mississippi Beautiful recognized the city for its 125th anniversary pecan project, which included wrapping 44 signal boxes throughout the city in a design that notes the pecan tree as the city’s official tree.
