Lorman, Mississippi: Ghost Town of Rodney

You would never guess it now, but Rodney was once a bustling and thriving river port town. It missed becoming the state capital by only three votes. However, today it is pretty much in ruins. There are still a few people who live there, but most of the town itself is abandoned. There are empty buildings, houses, and churches lining the main street in Rodney.

One of the churches still bears the scars of a Civil War gunboat attack and even has a cannonball stuck in the wall.

Rodney is an absolutely amazing place to visit filled with history and reminders of those that lived before us.

I've visited Rodney, MS several times to photograph it and found it to be a sad, forgotten place. There is so much American history at this place and it's been left to die at the end of a rural road.

Do your best to get there as soon as possible because the buildings are in disrepair and won't last many more years unless something is done. Be sure to hike up the hill behind the brick church to see the old cemetery... a hidden treasure. This "ghost town" should be a historic stop for every history buff in the area and state or federal funds should be granted to stop the decay of what's there... a forgotten treasure of the south's history.

I just couldn't let the comment pass that Rodney was once the largest town between Memphis and New Orleans. This is not true because Natchez, Mississippi and Baton Rouge, Louisiana were always bigger.

The population of Rodney is definitely not zero. This may not be the town it was in its heyday but as I visited it today there are still residents. My dad and a group from the church spent a week here in 1979 or 1980 after a flood helping rebuild and I heard of this little town many times after he returned home.

Rodney does have people who live there. I know this because for several months, I was one of them. There is a an elderly black lady who lives there, Daisy McGill. She was born and raised there. Her mother was the first female Postmaster in the state of Mississippi. If you get there, locate Ms. Daisy and she can tell you all about the town that once was. She is a walking history of Rodney. The house that I lived in was located right across the street from her home. Since I left, that house was separated into three sections, trucked to Bolton, MS, and restored.

As to the church with the cannonball in the wall, it is a Methodist Church [tipster Joe smith corrects that this is actually a Presbyterian church] and was fired upon during Sunday morning services. Up the hill behind the church is a cemetery. The oldest grave I saw in there was well before the Civil War and the cemetery is still used today. When it has been raining a lot they have to wait for the road to the cemetery to dry out to get to it.

There is a book written by Gordon Cotton, Retired Curator of the Old Courthouse Museum, Vicksburg, MS, that tells all about Rodney's history and contains pictures of the town.