Winchester: Wayne County's Forgotten First Capital

Winchester was the original county seat of Wayne County, Mississippi. Founded as early as eighteen thirteen and incorporated in eighteen eighteen, it sat on a beautiful level site covered in oak trees along Meadows Mill Creek. A military post, Patton's Fort, was built here during the Creek War of eighteen thirteen.

Winchester connected to the Three-Chopped Way, a pioneer road linking Georgia and the Carolinas to the Mississippi interior. Then the railroad arrived in the eighteen fifties and built its tracks north of town. The new depot drew commerce away.

The county seat moved to Waynesboro in eighteen sixty-seven. Old Winchester slowly returned to forest. Today it is a ghost town, remembered mainly in genealogy records and an overgrown historical marker.