Aviva Directory » Local & Global » North America » United States » States » Mississippi » Cities & Towns » Crystal Springs

Crystal Springs is in Copiah County, Mississippi. US Highway 51 runs through the northwestern part of the city, intersecting Interstate Highway 55, then leading north to the state capital of Jackson, and south to Brookhaven. Other nearby communities include Beech Grove, Gallman, and Moncure. The community was settled in the 1820s, one of its earliest settlers being Elisha Lott, a Methodist preacher, who built his home on a site just west of the current townsite. In a short time, a church, school, grist mill, lumber mill, and several homes were built. In 1858, the railroad bypassed the town by a few miles, so the town moved to be nearer to the railroad, concentrated along the rail line on a ridge that separates the Pearl River and the Mississippi River. The railroad brought a boost to the town’s economy, particularly in the shipping of locally grown tomatoes, but when trucking took over from the railroad, there was a reduction in produce shipping and in farming in general. Created in the late 1800s or early 1900s as part of the Chautauqua Movement, Chautauqua Park, in Crystal Springs, had eighty-six cottages arranged around a tabernacle, a forty-room hotel, restaurant, and grocery store, as well as ten trains making daily stops bringing visitors to and from the park. The Crystal Springs Chautauqua Assembly was active from 1892 to 1917, hosting noteworthy scholars and evangelists from all over the country. Currently, the park features baseball and softball diamonds, tennis courts, soccer fields, and basketball courts, a swimming pool, golf course, and walking trails.

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