Derma, MS

Derma is a Calhoun County town on Mississippi Highway 8, just east of Calhoun City and six miles west of Vardaman. The Yalobusha River passes about a mile south, giving the town a place in the river country of north-central Mississippi. Derma grew as a railroad town when the Mobile and Ohio Railroad planned a line through this part of the county. Its position along the highway and rail corridor helped make it a local stop between the larger communities on either side.

Derma once had two churches, fourteen stores, and an agricultural high school that drew students from around the county. The Calhoun Agricultural High School stood at the junction of the main east-west highway and a street leading into the business area, a useful picture of how the town was arranged. Fires and the long changes in transportation reduced that earlier commercial scale, but the basic map remains: Highway 8 through the center, Calhoun City next door, Vardaman to the east, and the Yalobusha River running south of town.