Midnight, Mississippi

Midnight is an unincorporated community located in Humphreys County, Mississippi, United States. Midnight is approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Louise and 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Silver City along Mississippi Highway 149. Although Midnight is unincorporated, it has a zip code of 39115.

Midnight, Mississippi
Unincorporated community
Midnight is located in Mississippi
Midnight
Midnight
Midnight is located in the United States
Midnight
Midnight
Coordinates: 33°02′58″N 90°34′24″W
CountryUnited States
StateMississippi
CountyHumphreys
Elevation
112 ft (34 m)
Time zoneUTC-6 (Central (CST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code
39115
Area code662
GNIS feature ID673539[1]

History

According to tradition, the original town site was won in a midnight poker hand, hence the name of the community.[2]

A post office called Midnight was established in 1897.[3] The post office building survived the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.[4] On October 5, 2002 the Midnight post office closed.[5] By 2010 it had been demolished as part of the USPS's service cuts.[4]

In the 2000s, resident Gwen McKenzie and other Midnight residents lobbied to have a highway sign installed that indicated the direction to Midnight. In 2009 the streets in Midnight received names and numbers.[4]

2023 tornado
See also: 2023 Rolling Fork–Silver City tornado

On March 24, 2023, a large and extremely destructive wedge tornado struck Midnight, causing severe damage. The same destructive tornado previously hit the town of Rolling Fork and would later hit Silver City as well. The tornado was rated high-end EF4, although only EF2 damage occurred in the town.[6][7]

Demographics

As of 2010 Midnight has fewer than 200 residents.[4]

Geography

Shashank Bengali of McClatchy Newspapers said that Midnight "feels like a place whose time has expired." Bengali explains that the clapboard houses, which were built almost one century before 2010, "rot on their cinder-block legs, tilting at crazy angles" and that Midnight's principal road is "dotted with abandoned or half-burned cabins that, older residents complain, young men disappear into to shoot dice or smoke pot as the days fade into dusk."[4]

Government and infrastructure

Houses in Midnight did not have street addresses until 2009. Midnight does not have a sewage system. Shashank Bengali of McClatchy Newspapers says that Midnight's electricity is "spotty."[4]

Education

Residents are zoned to the Humphreys County School District.

Notable people

In the 2000 film, Where the Heart Is, starring Natalie Portman, an older couple came from Midnight to reprimand Novalee for having her baby out of wedlock. They called it an abomination and later abducted the baby.

Midnight, 2014

References
  1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Midnight, Mississippi
  2. Moyer, Armond; Moyer, Winifred (1958). The origins of unusual place-names. Keystone Pub. Associates. p. 84.
  3. "Post Offices". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  4. Bengali, Shashank. "Mississippi Delta: the land economic recovery never visits." McClatchy Newspapers. April 11, 2010. Retrieved on September 23, 2010.
  5. "Postmaster Finder Post Offices by Discontinued Date Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine." United States Postal Service. Retrieved on September 23, 2010. "10/05/2002 MIDNIGHT MS HUMPHREYS COUNTY 39115"
  6. Will McDuffie; Peter Charalambous; Kevin Shalvey (March 25, 2023). "19 dead as 'destructive' tornado, storms batter Mississippi, officials say". ABC News. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
  7. Charalambous, Peter; Shalvey, Kevin; El-Bawab, Nadine (March 25, 2023). "'Leveled': Responders, residents describe horror of Mississippi tornado destruction". ABC News. Retrieved March 25, 2023.
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