Heidelberg: A Railroad Town with a German Name
Mississippi
Heidelberg, Mississippi has nothing to do with the famous German university city. The town grew up in the eighteen eighties along the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad in southeastern Jasper County, near what is now United States Highway Eleven. The namesake is said to have been a local man named Heidelberg, who organized the settlement.
The pattern was common across Mississippi in the eighteen eighties: a railroad arrives, a town founder acquires land at the junction, and within a few years a community exists that would otherwise have had no reason to form. Heidelberg became a small market town serving farmers in the surrounding county. Today it holds about six hundred residents, sitting quietly at the same crossroads where Heidelberg is said to have staked his claim over a century ago.
