Lexington, MS

Lexington is the Holmes County seat, organized as a city in 1836 after the county was created in 1833 from land ceded by the Choctaw in the Treaty of Doak’s Stand. The city sits north of Black Creek, a west-flowing tributary of the Yazoo River, and Highways 12 and 17 cross through Carrollton Street. Cotton, riverfront commerce, and court-day trade shaped the early town, while the history also carries the violence of removal, enslavement, and Reconstruction.

Lexington still handles county government around the courthouse square, and Holmes County’s board meetings take place there. Holmes County Consolidated School District operates nine schools, with Lexington schools at the center of the local education map. The city’s Saints Industrial and Literary School history points to the importance of Black education and Church of God in Christ leadership in the twentieth century. The annual Lexington Fall Festival gives the county seat a current gathering point, while the Yazoo and Black Creek landscape keeps the Delta close.