Byhalia: White Oak in Chickasaw

Byhalia is a small town in Marshall County, just below the Tennessee line, and its name is thought to come from the Chickasaw language. The town takes its name from Byhalia Creek, and the word is said to mean White Oak. The Chickasaw maintained a small village near what is now the Byhalia cemetery before their forced removal to Oklahoma in the eighteen thirties along routes that passed through this area, including the Pigeon Roost Road.

The town was founded in the eighteen thirties and has kept the anglicized spelling Byhalia ever since. It sits at the edge of the Memphis metropolitan area, a threshold between the Mississippi hill country and the city.