Is there anything new to say about Rodney, Mississippi?
I’ve been doing stories on Rodney pretty much all my television career. I go back every so often to see what’s left of the place.
Over the holidays I saw some pictures posted on Facebook taken at Rodney recently. I was shocked to a degree because the place seems to have aged a good bit more since the last time I was there. But Rodney has done little but age over the decades, starting just after the Civil War when the Mississippi River deserted it by a mile or so, changing its course to the west. The railroad bypassed it in favor of a flatter, more inland route through Jefferson County than the bluffs along the river where Rodney sits. So, Rodney sat literally, as well as figuratively, high and dry (except for the occasional flooding of the Mississippi River), slowly leaking population to places with more prospects.
Even though it is almost forgotten and way off any main thoroughfare, there have been very few times I’ve been there when there weren’t others mulling about.
Long before my time, Rodney ceased being a viable town and started taking on the aspects of a ghost town. Fewer and fewer people had even heard of it. I found Eudora Welty photographs of the Presbyterian church and rambling cemetery on the hilltop behind it. She lamented how far Rodney had deteriorated even way back in her day. During that time there was still enough of a town to recognize it as being a town.
I can think of very few places in Mississippi that are more out of the way than Rodney. It is somewhere south of Alcorn State University — west of Fayette, north of Natchez, and the closest other place to it that has a name is Lorman, south of Port Gibson. A handful of people still live there. The population swells several 100% during deer season with all the hunting camps in or near it.
Nowadays, about the only thing that brings people back to Rodney other than hunting is the church. It’s still an attraction for people who want to see a survivor from the past. That’s the odd thing about Rodney. Even though it is almost forgotten and way off any main thoroughfare, there have been very few times I’ve been there when there weren’t others mulling about. The last time I was there I met a fellow who had worked in West Point, moved to New Mexico, but was back in the state. One of the places he wanted to see was the Rodney church. He wasn’t disappointed.
Another fellow who grew up in Amite County, but now lived in Houston was there as well. He was visiting one of his “places to see before you die.”
You’re never dead until you are forgotten. Although people have left Rodney in the dust for decades, it seems far from forgotten. It’s just getting older.
