Senatobia, Mississippi

Senatobia is the seat of Tate County, Mississippi, about thirty-five miles south of Memphis in the hill country just east of the Delta. The name is derived from a Chickasaw phrase meaning roughly 'among the sycamores' or 'sycamore place,' reflecting the Native American landscape that Europeans displaced here in the eighteen thirties after the Chickasaw cession. The town grew as a county seat and railroad junction, and its position in the Memphis metropolitan fringe has given it modest suburban growth in recent decades.

Northwest Mississippi Community College is located here, founded in the late nineteen twenties as a two-year institution to serve a region with limited access to four-year schools. Senatobia's downtown courthouse square follows the classic Mississippi county seat pattern, radiating outward from a Greek Revival courthouse at the center.