Experience the rich culture and heritage of the Delta through its vast offerings of cultural attractions. Civil War artifacts, Indian mounds, juke joints, Blues museums, plantation homes, literary collections and Kermit the Frog are all at your fingertips. Leave the beaten path to view the many miles of cotton, soybean and corn fields along with the thousands of unlikely ponds where a majority of the world’s catfish is raised. And don’t forget the mighty Mississippi River which shaped and continues to shape this magic, mysterious land.
Greenwood is home to Cottonlandia Museum which helps the visitor put this unique land in context as it chronicles the history of the Mississippi Delta and the story of cotton. View Civil War relics and Native American artifacts that include the Southeast’s largest collection of trade beads. Grab a guide book and a map and follow the sound of the Blues, the American music form that was born in the Mississippi Delta. In and around Greenwood you can visit not one but three possible burial sites of Blues genius Robert Johnson, whose brief career ended with his premature death at age 27. Just an hour up the road is Clarksdale, home to the Delta Blues Museum. See the instruments of B.B. King and Sonny Boy Williamson and the log cabin home of Muddy Waters. Down the street from the museum you’ll find Ground Zero Blues Club, owned by actor and Mississippi native Morgan Freeman. Right outside of Cleveland, stop at the site that many historians consider the birthplace of the blues, Dockery Plantation, where bluesman Charley Patton lived and worked. Greenville is home to the Mississippi Writers’ Exhibit, and five miles away in Leland you’ll find the Highway 61 Blues Museum and the birthplace of Kermit the Frog, whose creator Jim Henson spent his boyhood here. Driving the Delta is a not-to-be-missed magical tour.
For more information about the Delta, visit some of the following links: visitthedelta.com; greenwoodms.com ; gcvb.com; visitclevelandms.com; clarksdaletourism.com; and visitgreenville.org.
