Marshall: Capital of the Confederacy West of the Mississippi

Marshall was founded in eighteen forty-one as the seat of Harrison County and grew quickly on cotton wealth. By eighteen sixty it was the fourth-largest city in Texas. When the Civil War split the nation and the Confederacy lost Vicksburg, Marshall became the Confederate administrative capital for all territory west of the Mississippi River.

The exiled Confederate government of Missouri also operated from Marshall from eighteen sixty-three to eighteen sixty-five. After the war, the Methodist Episcopal Church established Wiley College here in eighteen seventy-three, the first accredited Black college west of the Mississippi River. Wiley's debate team, coached by Melvin Tolson, defeated the national champion University of Southern California in nineteen thirty-five, a story told in the two thousand seven film The Great Debaters.

Today Marshall is also known for its Wonderland of Lights, one of the largest Christmas lighting events in the South, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors each winter.