BLUES AND BUSINESS IN CLAY COUNTY
After an economic slump in the mid-2000s, business is steadily increasing in West Point and Clay County. The area has seen incoming retail and fast food chains as well as long-term investments by major companies like Peco Foods and Navistar Defense. City and county officials now look to make the West Point area a better place to live and work with road improvement projects and the promise of a museum honoring the region’s greatest musicians, the legendary blues singers who trace their roots to Clay County and the Black Prairie.
BLACK PRAIRIE BLUES MUSEUM
The Prairie Belt Blues Foundation, known primarily for putting on the annual Black Prairie Blues Festival in September, is designing an interactive museum featuring the music and lives of musicians from Mississippi’s Black Prairie, most notably West Point’s own Howlin’ Wolf.
The organization purchased the old bank building on Commerce Street for about $50,000 two years ago, said Jeremy Klutts, curator of the current museum on Westbrook Road. West Point artist Deborah Mansfield is working with Dallas,Texas-based firm Museum Arts to design the museum’s interior and exhibits. The building will allow for about 1,500 square feet of space for movable exhibits and is already equipped with a stage and a back room which Klutts said he’d like to model like a juke joint. Exhibits will tell the stories of musicians like Big Joe Williams, Lucille Bogan, Bukka White and of course Howlin’ Wolf.
The budget for the project is $175,000, Klutts said. The foundation already raised $20,000 at a fundraiser in October. Another fundraiser is scheduled for March 27.
The museum is in the design phase right now, but Klutts said he hopes the museum will be ready to open within a year or 18 months.
ROAD PROJECTS
Clay County and the City of West Point have combined forces on a $1 million project to pave 1.66 miles of West Churchill Road, which runs between the new Peco Foods facility and Prestage Farms.
The city and county signed an interlocal agreement making the county the lead agency, meaning it will issue bids to contractors and otherwise oversee the project. The agreement has been sent to the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office for approval, West Point Mayor Robbie Robinson said.
About half of the project’s funding, $500,000, came from state appropriations, said Robinson, with another $240,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission and a $150,000 Small Municipalities grant. The remainder of the project’s funding will be split evenly between the city and county, Robinson said.
In November, West Point’s board of selectmen also approved $2.5 million in general obligation bonds for street projects within the city limits. The city has two years to spend the GO bond money and Robinson said the projects will likely begin this summer or early fall once the city issues bids to construction companies. The project will not require a millage increase.
Robinson said they will start with major thoroughfares Main Street, Broad Street and North Eshman Avenue. Once those projects are completed, city officials will look at paving neighborhood streets, starting with those most in need of resurfacing. Robinson said the city’s last such major paving project was four years ago.
The city also just wrapped up a $580,000 project to refurbish its north water plant, which is now set to pump 3.5 million gallons of water per day.
BUSINESS UPDATES
Peco Foods, which opened a chicken processing facility in the old Bryan Foods building off West Churchill Road, is slated to complete construction on a 150,000 square foot par fry facility on the property. The building should be slated for opening in May, said plant manager Jordan Townsend, allowing for Peco to begin the process of hiring 300 employees over the next five years.
In January, Navistar Defense announced it had purchased its West Point assembly plant from Babcock and Wilcox, according to a Navistar press release. The company had leased the 562,000 square foot facility from B&W since 2006. The building, located on 161 acres off Sixth Street, is Navistar’s primary manufacturing site, producing tens of thousands of vehicles since 2006, according to the press release. Robinson said the purchase showed Navistar’s long-term commitment to West Point.
Retail also continues to develop along the city’s busy Highway 45 Alternate, with both a Jack’s fast food restaurant and a McAllister’s Deli under construction along that road. Robinson said it’s an area that has been growing quickly over the last four to five years, coinciding with the arrival of major industries such as Yokohama, which broke ground in 2015.
STORY BY ISABELLE ALTMAN
PHOTOS BY DEANNA ROBINSON
