About Co-Lin Administration Faculty and Staff Instructional Divisions Libraries Planning & Research Co-Lin Wolves Calendar History – The Town of Wesson, Mississippi, was founded in 1864, during the Civil War, by Col. James Madison Wesson.  Having lost his  mills at Bankston, Mississippi, Wesson relocated to the town that now bears his name.  There he built the Mississippi Manufacturing company which produce a fine quality cotton fabric.  In 1871 he sold the mill to Captain William Oliver and Mr. John T. Hardy who renamed it the Mississippi Mills.  The mills became famous for the quality of cotton fabric produced which was dubbed “Mississippi silk” at the centennial celebration of 1876.  A product of the industrial revolution Wesson, Mississippi, and the mills located there, began to utilize the new technology of the rapidly changing age.  One year after Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb the Mississippi Mills put them to use.  It was said that passengers on the evening train would rush to the windows when passing through Wesson in order to see the marvelous lights.

This prosperity, however, came to an end after the death of Captain Oliver in 1891.  Financial difficulties followed by the economic “Panic of 1893”, family conflict, and labor disputes caused the mills to fall into receivership in the early 1900’s.  finally they were dismantled and sold for scrap during the First World War.

 Wesson is a town with a glorious past, an outstanding present, and a promising future.  In its transition from a milling town which produced the best material in the world, to an education town with a community college which ranks at the top scholastically, Wesson is unique.  The first public school in Wesson was built in 1875, and the community college was added in 1928.  Statistics show that the town is “on the move” with creativity, ingenuity, dedications that exists in the Copiah County town of Wesson.