| Official Name: | Mount Carmel, Mississippi |
| Pushpin Map: | Mississippi#USA |
| Pushpin Label: | Mount Carmel |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | United States |
| Subdivision Type1: | State |
| Subdivision Name1: | Mississippi |
| Subdivision Type2: | County |
| Subdivision Name2: | Jefferson Davis |
| Timezone: | Central (CST) |
| Utc Offset: | -6 |
| Timezone Dst: | CDT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | -5 |
| Elevation M: | 150 |
| Elevation Ft: | 492 |
| Coordinates: | 31.6453°N -89.7953°W |
| Blank Name: | GNIS feature ID |
| Blank Info: | 673998 |
Mount Carmel is a ghost town in Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi, United States.
Once a thriving 19th-century community, little remains today of Mount Carmel but a museum located within a historic home.
Mount Carmel is one of the oldest settlements in Jefferson Davis County.[1]
Mt. Zion Methodist Church was established near Mount Carmel in 1817.[2]
John Ragan, a Revolutionary soldier from Virginia, laid out the town in 1819, in what was then Covington County.[1] [3] The plan provided for lots, streets, and a large central square with two springs.[1] Mount Carmel incorporated in 1835, and had two or three stores, and two churches.[1]
The town also had a well-regarded co-educational school, Mount Carmel Academy, which opened prior to 1830. At one point it had 70 to 80 students. The school moved in 1845.[1] [4]
Benjamin L.C. Wailes traveled through the community in 1852 and wrote in his journal:
After crossing [the] Bouie over a bridge (passing through the bottom land in which there is a good deal of large oak & gum mixed with some Shortleaf pine) ascended a considerable eminence to a level table land of Oak and hickory, on which the village of Mount Carmel is situated. About 70 inhabitants. Two or three considerable Country Stores. More business [is] done [here] than at Williamsburg, and the situation is much handsomer, & the buildings (tho' plain frame) [are] better.[1]
Around 1873, John Fielding Holloway built a large house in Mount Carmel, and it remains the community's only 19th-century structure.[1]
Mount Carmel was by-passed during the construction of the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad in 1899, and the Mississippi Central Railroad in 1903. As a result, many businesses and residents moved to one of the nearby railway towns of Prentiss, Bassfield, or Collins.[1] In 1904, Mount Carmel was officially unincorporated.[1]
The nearly abandoned community began to grow again during the early 20th century, when African-Americans began purchasing land in the town and surrounding community. The new community began to prosper, and contained all the essential services, goods and farm products needed for self-sufficiency.[1] In 1911, Robert Decatur "Cap" Polk, a leading African-American planter and businessmen, purchased the Holloway House, and installed a large and modern farm on the nearby property.[1] Now called the John Fielding Holloway House, it remains one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in Jefferson Davis County. The home is a historical and cultural center, and tours are available.[5]