By John Howell Sr.

Four historical markers have been approved for Batesville sites, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) has announced.

MDAH Resource Specialist William Thompson stated in a letter to City Clerk Susan Berryhill that all four of the city’s applications — one each for the Mt. Zion M. B. Church, the St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, the Jim Bates home and the downtown Square — have been approved.
The Mt. Zion M. B. Church at the corner of Panola Avenue and Hoskins Road is the site where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke shortly before his assassination in 1968. King’s audience that day — March 19, 1968 — included many area civil rights activists as well as most of the senior class of Patton Lane High School who had walked with their sponsor, Percy Bruce, the short distance from the school to the church.

The St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church building on Panola Avenue was completed in 1896, built by renowned northwest Mississippi builder and architect Andrew “Swede” Johnson. It served the Batesville Episcopal congregation until the early 1940s when their numbers fell and the congregation disbanded. During the 1950s and until 1967, it served as the Batesville Public Library and has subsequently served as a venue for club meetings and community gatherings.

The building’s furnishings include Bavarian-style, hand-carved wooden furniture built by German prisoners of war at Camp Como during World War II and donated to the American Legion Post.
The Jim Bates home on Country Club Drive is the oldest structure extant from Batesville’s early history. Begun in 1851 and completed in 1856 by James Wesley Bates, an early settler who farmed, preached as a Methodist circuit rider and civic leader who promoted the construction of the Mississippi and Tennessee Railroad through Panola County during the 1850s. When the railroad construction reached what is now the town square in the fall of 1857,  railroad officials began calling the stop “Batesville” in his honor. The home’s present occupants, Dr. Richard Corson and his wife, Kathy, have restored and preserved the home much like it appeared at its completion over 150 years ago.

The downtown square began to grow around the railroad as soon as the first trains arrived in 1857. Businesses immediately began to relocate from the river port one mile north to what was first called “Panola Depot.” By the spring of 1858, the depot was being called “Batesville.” The square was the center of commercial activity for over a century and remains a viable business and professional district as well as the seat of city and county governments.

The markers will be cast by Sewah Studios of Marietta, Ohio and are expect to be available by October, according to Lauralee Gann of Mendrop Engineering. Gann compiled the research and prepared the applications that were submitted to MDAH.