Nettleton, Aberdeen, Amory, Mantachie

A couple years ago we took a quick trip through Amory on the tail end of a day-long zip around North Mississippi. We arrived late in the day and everything was closed, so our visit didn’t amount to much more than a fine home-cooked dinner at Wilson’s Family Restaurant and a drive through downtown. We were impressed by what we saw though and made plans to return to see the Amory Regional Museum and eat at Bill’s Hamburgers.

We opted for the old route out of Tupelo (two-lane Highway 45) because we wanted to have a look around Nettleton on the way. Neither of us has ever spent time there, but it isn’t exactly uncharted territory either. Marian’s mother used to teach there and I used to pass through on my frequent trips to Aberdeen in the ‘60s. It had grown a bit and there had been some laudable attempts to spruce things up/gentrify the downtown area with cute storefronts.

Downtown Nettleton -- south side of the street -- Holland Funeral Home

On to Aberdeen, a beautiful old town that has seen some hard times but appears to be on its way up. Aberdeen is on the Tombigbee River, a fact that is much more important than it seems at first glance. Before there were interstates, before there were highways, before there were railroads, everything was shipped by boat and those boats had to dock and load/unload somewhere. Consequently, port towns were prosperous places inhabited by important people: shipping magnates, bankers, store owners, etc. Such affluence tends to leave a legacy of beautiful buildings and fine houses and, judging by the number of gorgeous historic homes – many of them antebellum – Aberdeen must have been a prosperous town indeed. There are over 200, an incredible number given the size of Aberdeen.

Aberdeen Court House

We made our requisite stop at Monogram Magic on the way into town – it’s one of our very favorite places (seriously, google this place, it's great!) – and left with shopping bags overflowing with shoes, purses, earrings, candles…and fudge! Then we drove around and looked at the beautiful homes.

Aberdeen hosts a Pilgrimage every April, although it’s overshadowed by the one in nearby Columbus, only thirty miles away. Columbus has a much larger to-do, but while Aberdeen can’t build more antebellum homes, they can fix up the plethora of historic homes they do have and they seem to be very busy doing just that. Aberdeen native Billy Brasfield is generally credited with putting this gentrification into motion, and that may well be true.

Billy Brasfield completed this clapboard renovation.

Billy, who grew up in Aberdeen and then moved to New York and became a makeup artist, remodeled one of Aberdeen’s smaller old houses a few years back, and now many people seem to have jumped on the revitalization bandwagon. It sure makes for a jaw-dropping drive.

Beautiful old home in Aberdeen

We zipped over to Amory next, to Bill’s Hamburgers. It may seem silly to make such a big deal over a burger, but our theory is that any restaurant that can last 80+ years – even with changes of ownership – deserves a visit. Not to mention that we like to eat. Bill’s is famous for its burgers; it is one of two Mississippi restaurants mentioned in the Hamburger America book (Phillips Grocery in Holly Springs is the other). It’s a step back in time to visit Bill’s, but we’re comfortable stepping back in time – we've already been there; it’s familiar to us – so we plopped down at the counter and ordered off the menu, a plastic sign on the wall. We had our choice between burgers with onions and burgers without onions. Things used to be so much simpler. The burgers tasted just like Mom used to make, and the total tab for a burger, fries and an iced tea was $4.85.

Burgers aren’t all there is to Amory though. Amory is a railroad town, or used to be back when railroads wielded life or death powers. Actually, Amory is the state’s first planned community, established because the railroad needed a stopping point between Memphis and Birmingham back in the late 1800s. It’s even named for one of the railroad bigwigs and there’s still a certain “railroadiness” about the town in things like its motto, “A Community on the Right Track,” and its downtown park, Frisco Park, a beautiful expanse of green where they hold their annual Railroad Festival every April.

Engine 1529 is said to have been the last steam engine to pull a passenger train on the Frisco line. The engine is displayed at the Amory Museum.

After Bill’s, we dropped by the Amory Regional Museum, an interesting collection of photos and exhibits covering a variety of topics relating to Amory. There are Indian relics, military paraphernalia, and antique medical instruments among the displays and, amazingly, it’s free. It’s a good little museum, but we were more interested in the building it’s in, a beautiful old house that once served as Amory’s sanitarium/hospital. We were also taken with the train car attached to the back of the museum. It’s a passenger coach, the Frisco’s Pasadena Hills No. 1251 for you train buffs, and it houses railroad memorabilia. There is a little log cabin, circa 1850, behind the museum too, an interesting place to snoop around.

Amory Park Hotel -- the ground floor is the restaurant.

We’d been real excited about seeing Amory’s Park Hotel because we have a soft spot for old hotels and towns that have the foresight to preserve them. We’re hoping the Park is as nice on the inside as it is on the outside, but we don’t know because it was locked up tight as a drum. Even the restaurant – where we had been planning to enjoy a little ice cream. Granted, it was Wednesday afternoon and several things were closed, so we’re hoping that was all it was and that the hotel will be around a long time, but it’s worrisome.

We still had a couple hours of daylight left, so we headed north out of Amory and about forty-five minutes later we were greeted by a sign welcoming us to Itawamba County: “Native American Name, Classic American Community.” Our destination was Mantachie, which is much larger than we had thought it would be and much nicer. There’s even a sign posted along the highway into town noting, “Deaf Child Area,” which makes Mantachie seem like a very thoughtful community too.

Welcome to Mantachie

Jim "Buck" Murphy Store -- now an antique store in a quiet setting

Aberdeen -- Columbus -- Amory May 7, 2009

How about a day-trip to the cities of Aberdeen, Columbus, Amory?

We took the old Highway 45 route into Aberdeen – driving by Ernie’s, a hamburger joint that used to have the best frozen custard in the world. Memories...always tied to good food and good friends.

One of the first signs that caught our attention was on a little shop called Monogram Magic. Monogramming...something that we both love to do. It looked like a neat place to get some gifts, and, boy, we weren’t disappointed! The store was crowded with baby gifts, little girls’ dresses, shoes, purses, jewelry, and things to monogram.

August of 1929 postcard of Commerce Street in Aberdeen -- costs a penny to mail it!

Aberdeen has beautiful tree-lined streets and some of the prettiest antebellum houses in the state.The downtown area still needs some spit and polish, but we drove around a while and then went on to Columbus, home to Mississippi University for Women. What a beautiful place and campus! Susan was a student there for the first two years of college - back when the place was known as MSCW.

Susan – I’ll take us on this little jaunt down memory lane. There is a new – very pretty – entrance to the ‘W’ now. At least, I don’t remember there having been one before. I hadn’t been back in at least 15 years, and the last time I was there, I was struck by how gorgeous it was. In fact, I was stunned by what a beautiful campus it was. I was stunned this time too, but this time it was because it looked so different.

Most all of the dorms that I remember from forty years ago are still there – Fant, for instance. It’s looking old, but doesn’t seem to be in bad condition. The old sophomore dorms over by the former dining hall (Shattuck Hall) are empty and in poor shape – Shattuck’s empty too. The two sophomore dorms were among the newer dorms when I was there, and it seems odd that Fant – which was ancient even when I was there – is still used, and not the two high rises. The old house on campus – possibly the president’s house? – is deserted as well and that really is a shame – it’s gorgeous and should be saved. Apparently, there was a tornado that touched down on campus a few years back, and it did a good bit of damage. They’ve done some nice landscaping, but it’s obviously new and doesn't have that old- growth look that made the campus look so elegant.
We ate at the Goose, the college’s snack bar, because the cafeteria was closed. Anyway, the Goose has changed very little since I first saw it on a Girl Scout trip in 1960 – it has been expanded a bit, but the general layout and the mailboxes are the same. After lunch, we headed toward the back of campus to see the Magnolia, the private dorm. It was fairly new when I was there, and was the lap of luxury. The lap of luxury is gone. I don’t know why, but there’s not a brick left. They’ve built some new dorms at the back of campus – nondescript high rises. They’ve also built new facades on some buildings that are too modern for what used to be a stately old campus. The whole campus seems to be fenced in, and I get the feeling it’s a security fence rather than a decorative one. Marian may have thought it was beautiful, having never seen it before, and maybe I would too if I had never been there, but for me it was kind of a depressing experience.
Downtown Columbus is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful – I give it 4 stars. The buildings have been updated with bright paint, awnings, and ironwork. Boutiques, clothing stores, a cafe, a coffee shop, and a consignment shop – just to name a few places to shop/see downtown. I think Columbus has done it right on their downtown revitalization plan.

Going west from Columbus we took Highway 82 to Highway 45 Alternate to an interesting-looking antique shop just north of the Egypt community. (This is one of those places that I have always wanted to stop when Barry and I return from the coast, but testosterone doesn't stop for shopping.) This store has a beautiful building with many, many antiques, but, they close a bit early (4:00) and we felt rushed to complete our “tour” before the doors closed behind us.

Hey, we still had some daylight left, and, so on to Amory! I remembered a previous trip to Amory to visit a garden full of irises…and we spent quite a bit of time driving through the residential area looking for the house. Although we never found the house, we certainly didn't waste our time – honestly – this town is beautiful! The homes – while they are not antebellum – have been lovingly restored, and the gardens are beautiful! Also, we found the old depot and an interesting log cabin that both had already closed for the day.

Hunger and lack of daylight made us give up on the iris-yard, but not on Amory....so, we drove through the downtown area looking for dinner. The young lady we asked highly recommended the Wilson's Family Restaurant – she may have been a relative, but heck, she knew her country food!

The restaurant was pretty empty when we went in, but, the aroma of home cooking was enough to make us realize that this place was for us. There was a buffet of chopped steak, gravy, green beans, salad, cornbread – food was just like Grandma used to cook. The atmosphere was welcoming and down home. (They host a music and singing program on Thursday nights – and, by the time we left, we could tell that it was very well attended.)

I asked the waitress what they added to the ground beef to make the chopped steak taste so good? She got the sweet lady who did the cooking to come out to talk to us. She said that the steak had no fillers, nothing was added except fresh ground beef (they grind it themselves fresh everyday)...she packed the beef tightly and grilled the steaks before they added them to the pan of gravy. One more hint was – don't turn the steaks too much and don't press down on the cooking patties. I've tried her “recipe” but the secret must be in the fresh meat – or it could be the years of experience.

For desert they offered homemade peach cobbler on the buffet and the cook sent us out some of her special chocolate cobbler. Wow!

We got back to Tupelo around 7:30 – and went for a 3 mile walk.

One major note: Amory is somewhere that we have to re-visit. There are many, many things that we have missed and, heck, Wilson's Family Restaurant serves home cooking almost every night.