Historic Woodville

We welcome you to our town of Woodville tucked away in the Southwest corner of Mississippi near the river between Natchez and Baton Rouge.

This website is the effort of a group of volunteers who have established the Wilkinson County Museum... with two museum buildings on the court house square in this county seat. The Offices and Banking House of the West Feliciana Railroad Building was built in 1834 and is our main building. The Branch Banking House built earlier about 1819 is our African American Museum.

These two buildings are only two of many projects of the Woodville Civic Club Inc. our 501... ) (3) parent organization.

Woodville was established at the site of an earlier settlement in 1809 shortly after Mississippi became part of the growing United States of America as a Territory in 1798..

It was one of the important early towns along with Natchez and Port Gibson and when Mississippi joined the union as a State in 1817 we were involved. We supplied the first native born Governor, Gerard C. Brandon and the first Lt. Governor Duncan Stewart. We supplied Senators, Representatives, and even a Chief Justice.

For two hundred years we have been a stable community as the county seat of Wilkinson County. You can see it in our architecture, in our way of life, and in our institutions. Woodvillians love their community and it shows.

Today we have the oldest continuously published newspaper in the state... the Woodville Republican...established in 1823...which also makes it the oldest business institution in the state. Three of our churches are the oldest... The Woodville Baptist Church in 1809 and St. Pauls Episcopal Church and The Woodville Methodist Church both in 1823.

In later years we have among our native sons not only Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America but also William Grant Still the first African American conductor of a major orchestra, the Los Angeles Symphony.

Our National Register District, our Journals of Wilkinson County History, our museums, and our people all have a story to share. We want to share it with you.

Write us, call us, or even better... come visit!

The museum opening in October, 1991, marked the twentieth year of preservation efforts by the Woodville Civic Club, owner of the historic property.

The building which houses the museum was erected in 1838 as the office of the West Feliciana Railroad Company and is located on the southeast corner of the Courthouse Square in the Woodville Historic District.

The West Feleciana Railroad was the third oldest railroad in America and was constructed by Judge Edward McGehee and other Woodville financiers. Built to transport cotton from the county seat of Woodville to the river boats on the Mississippi at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, it was the first railroad to use standard gauge track and the first to adopt the use of the cattle guard. This railroad, which made its first run in 1842, was the first to issue and print freight tariff bills, and its home office in Woodville is thought to the the oldest of its kind in the nation.