Sunklands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coahoma_County,_Mississippi

Clarksdale is now the largest and most important city in the county, and was named for John Clark, a brother-in-law of Governor James L. Alcorn, whose home, Eagle’s Nest, was in this county.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_L._Alcorn

James Alcorn was elected by the Republicans as governor in 1869, serving, as Governor of Mississippi from 1870 to 1871. As a modernizer, he appointed many like-minded former Whigs, even if they were now Democrats. He strongly supported education, including public schools for blacks only, and a new college for them, now known as Alcorn State University.

Although a former slaveholder, he characterized slavery as “a cancer upon the body of the Nation” and expressed the gratification which he and many other Southerners felt over its destruction.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friars_Point,_Mississippi

Friars Point is one of two hypothesized locations where Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto may have crossed the Mississippi River (the other is Commerce, Mississippi).[1]

The town was founded in 1836 and originally called “Farrar’s Point”. When the town incorporated in 1852, its name was changed to “Friar’s Point” to honor Robert Friar, an early settler, legislator, and businessman who sold fuel to passing steamboats. In 1850, the county seat was moved from the nearby town of Delta to Friars Point.[2][3]

Strategically situated at a bend in the Mississippi River, Friars Point flourished before the Civil War as the largest shipping center for cotton south of Memphis.[4]

Friars Point was also home to Confederate Brigadier General James L. Alcorn, whose grave and former plantation, Eagles Nest, are located a short distance east of the town.[7] Alcorn turned from Whig to Republican after the war, and went on to become Governor with the support of the large number of carpetbaggers who had settled in Friars Point.[4]

Charles Lindbergh ran out of gas while flying his plane over Friars Point in 1924, and landed at a place he later called “The Haunted House”.[5][6]

As nearby Clarksdale grew in population and influence, it challenged Friars Point’s hold on the county government. In 1892, Coahoma County was divided into two jurisdictions, one going to Friars Point and the other to Clarksdale. In 1930, the county seat was given exclusively to Clarksdale. Historian Lawrence J. Nelson wrote that by that point, “Friars Point had receded into a sleepy river community.”[4]

Time Magazine wrote in 2013:

Once a thriving port town and the county seat, economic decline has left Friars Point with a lone elementary school, a few churches, a city hall, a post office, a small general store, a museum that opens only sporadically, a nightclub called Show T Boat where a man was shot to death in 2011, and a bank. The town no longer has a doctor or health clinic, a drug store, a sit-down restaurant, a recreational center, a library, or any businesses to speak of. Kids travel 15 miles to Clarksdale for junior and senior high school.[9]

Muddy Waters said the only time he saw Robert Johnson play was on the front porch of Hirsberg’s Drugstore in Friars Point. A crowd had gathered around Johnson, who was playing ferociously. “I stopped and peeked over,” said Waters, “and then I left because he was a dangerous man.”[10][11] In a 1937 recording, Johnson sang, “Just come on back to Friars Point, mama, and barrelhouse all night long.”[12] In Johnson’s Traveling Riverside Blues he sang, “I got womens in Vicksburg, clean on into Tennessee, but my Friar’s Point rider, now, hops all over me.”[13]

Friars Point has been written about by both William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. At various times, both writers had vacationed at Uncle Henry’s Inn on nearby Moon Lake.

Notable people:

Conway Twitty – country music singer who once held the record for having the most number-one-hit singles.[7]

Deupree’s Historic Homes: Eagle’s Nest

Eagle’s Nest

The home of James L. Alcorn, in Coahoma county, received its name in a most natural way; an eagle had built her nest for many years in a large cottonwood tree in a field adjoining the park which surrounds the residence. In alloting work to the plantation laborers the supervisor spoke of it as the Eagle-nest field, thus the plantation and the home became known as “Eagle’s Nest.” There are several nests of these birds in the cypress brakes just back of the buildings.

The home is a large modern frame structure. The lumber was cut from the forests on the plantation, and dressed by hand under the supervision of Gen. Alcorn. The house has five wide halls, twenty-two large, high ceiled rooms, made home-like and cheerful by ingle-nooks, cozy corners and numerous broad windows. Three bay windows open on the blue waters of the lake on which the home fronts. Broad verandas extend around three sides of the house; the whole surmounted by an observatory commanding a view of beautiful Swan lake, the park, and the broad fields of corn and cotton, the whole making a pictures never surpassed in natural beauty. Mrs. Alcorn tells the following interesting story as to the way the lake received its name:

“In the early days it was a feeding ground for numbers of wild swans. A huntsman on one occasion shot, and broke the wing of one of these graceful birds. It could never again leave the lake; year after year it welcomed the coming of its fellows with glad cries, and pined in sorrow when they plumed their broad wings and took flight for new feeding grounds; it was pitiable to see its efforts to follow. Since then the pretty sheet of water has been called Swan’s Lake. Upon the shore of this lake stands the tree in which the great eagle mentioned above built her nest. She showed both judgment and taste in the selection of a home; for the waters of the lake furnished an abundance of food for her young, and the view is one of unsurpassed beauty.”

The axmen were directed to leave that tree untouched when the field was enlarged by clearing the southern part of the park; but the careless, thoughtless, destroyer of the forest, regardless of orders belted this monarch of ages. The grounds immediately about the house are shaded by large oak, magnolia, holly, and varnish trees. The gardens are gorgeous with bloom from the coming of the dainty snowdrop and purple violet of spring to the asters of the late autumn. In the park, near the southern limit, is a large Indian mound, and on this mound sleeps James L. Alcorn, his grave marked by a marble statue of himself. Near by rest the remains of four sons. Two died in defense of their home and country. Major Alcorn, the eldest, was as brave and true a soldier as ever went to the front of battle. Henry, the second son, then a lad of seventeen years, captured and taken to Camp Chase, contracted typhoid fever and died on the way home an exchanged prisoner, and now sleeps beside his father on the old Indian mound. The wide halls and lofty rooms of this stately home that once echoed to the tread of busy feet, are now silent, and deserted by all save the widowed mother.

Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Vol. VI (1902), pp. 249-250.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Lake,_Mississippi

Tennessee Williams visited Moon Lake Casino, and referred to it in all but two of his plays.

Yes, the three of us drove out to Moon Lake Casino, very drunk and laughing all the way.
—Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire

William Faulkner also visited the place, and referred to it in one of his novels as “Moon Lake Hotel.”

Question: Is the Fal Mouth Moon (gallery) a direct relative of this Moon Lake Hotel? Remember that it served as a conduit to VWX Town’s The Moon during its Rubi incarnation. Falmouth Hotel is also an inworld famous haunted spot in Bay City.
I believe Moon Lake refers to the American Moon Landing, because the largest island of the lake is Texas (Misson Control location) and the other large island is Alcorn Island, named for James Alcorn of Eagle’s Landing. Remember “The Eagle has landed”.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Eagle%20has%20Landed

part of speech: idiom

Originally used by Neil Armstrong when the first man-made craft (the “Eagle”) landed on the moon, now used to indicate the completion of a “mission objective”.
1. Neil Armstrong: Houston, the Eagle has landed.

2. Criminal #1: Are you inside?
Criminal #2: The Eagle has landed.

3. Jim: So, did you sleep with Allison yet?
Tim: Dude, the Eagle has landed.