The small town of Crosby, Mississippi straddles the boundaries between Amite County on the north and east, and Wilkinson County on the west, with portions of the town in each. The town was formed around 1800, at which time it was known as Dayton for its first shopkeeper, David Day. In 1916, most of the town moved a short distance away to be nearer the railroad and a large lumber mill that was built there. In 1917, Dayton was incorporated into the new town, which was named Stephenson for Fred Stephenson, the owner of the Foster Creek Lumber Company, who built a large lumber mill there. The mill’s log pond was in Amite County, while the mill itself was in Wilkinson County. At one time, the mill was one of the largest in the South and one of the first to be operated by electricity. The town was laid out parallel to the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, which had extended its tracks through the area. When L.O. Crosby purchased the lumber mill in 1934, the town changed its name to Crosby. The mill closed in 1963, and its timber holdings were sold to St. Regis Paper Company. For a short time, the mill was reopened as Hood Lumber Company, but most of the former mill’s employees had moved elsewhere for work, and the cost of purchasing lumber from St. Regis was prohibitive. The primary road leading through the town is Mississippi Highway 33, which leads to the town of Coles, just southeast of Crosby, then continuing south to Gloster and Tatum. In the other direction, Highway 33 leads northwest to Rosetta, Garden City, Knoxville and Franklin. Other nearby communities include Bunkley, Freewoods, Hiram, Ireland, Perrytown, and Saukum. Crosby is in the Homochitto National Forest, in southwestern Mississippi, near the state’s border with Louisiana.

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