A brief Hstory of DeSoto County
Courtesy of the DeSoto County Geneological Society
World War 1 and the 1920s
The war that had raged in Europe since 1914, commanded 1ittle local attention. President Wilson won reelection on the theme of "He will keep us out of the war." On April 6, 1917, the United States entered the war.
The DeSoto County Military Registration Board consisting of W. L. Harrison, Sheriff; W. F. Wood, Circuit Court Clerk; Dr. T. M. Jones, County Health Officer; and S. N. Savage, Tax Assessor, set up the registration of every male from 21 to 30 years of age. Numbers were assigned and drawn for young men to go for military examination. In DeSoto County 2,096 men registered.
Though unprepared to wage a war the people attacked the problem with energy. Everyone from the smallest child up was called on to increase production of food, to make vegetable gardens in flower beds, and to can, dry, and preserve the produce. "Meatless Days" and "Wheatless Days" called on the population to conserve meat and wheat for the boys "Over There." Liberty Bond drives raised extra funds for the war effort.
The St. Mihiel battle of September 1918, was the first distinctly American offensive of the war. DeSoto County young men participated. At least three DeSoto trained nurses: Miss Annie E. Logan, Miss Frances Dement Lester and Mrs. Edna R. Campbell, served overseas in military hospitals.
In 1917, a group of Memphians agitated for a graveled state highway from Memphis via Hernando to Winona. Years later these plans came to fruition as the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway. Today we call it Highway 51.
Under the leadership of county Agricultural Agent Thompson in 1919, farmers in the Olive Branch area shipped two cooperative box car loads of cattle to market in St. Louis. The stock yards there paid higher prices.
In 1915, 828 citizens of the county owned automobiles. There were 4,415 mules and horses that year. The weight limit for log wagons was 12,000 pounds.
Slot machines were ruled gambling devices and prohibited in the county. Whiskey stills, bootlegging, theft of livestock, poultry and cotton, and theft of evergreen trees and shrubs in the country at christmas kept Sheriff G. T. Thomas and his deputies busy. Deputies were not on salary, but were paid from fines collected from the miscreants.
Home Light and Power Company bought the local electric company and promised to keep the electricity on for 24 hours a day. The post office installed individual mail boxes. In Tunica County 2,300 acres of cut-over land was offered for sale at $4.00 per acre.
In 1926, the first school buses carried some children to school. Most still had to walk. Farmers organized the DeSoto County Farm Bureau in 1927. Mrs. B. J. Tonner was elected in 1928, as DeSoto County's first female state representative.
