Photos of Corinth, Tupelo and Columbus

Corinth, Tupelo and Columbus are about 110 miles apart, but all are close to the Alabama border. Corinth is also very close to the Tennessee border, and to the site of the Battle of Shiloh. The Civil War photograph here was shot in 1862, at one of the two engagements that were fought there: the Siege of Corinth that followed the Confederate defeat at Shiloh or (more likely) the Battle of Corinth later that year. The other two photos of Corinth were taken by a local photographer. The photo of Columbus was made by a photographer working for the Roosevelt administration's Federal Writers' Project; it appeared in the project's Guide to Mississippi that was published in 1938. (In The Mansion Faulkner refers to "the flatter prairie land to the east [of Yoknapatawpha] near Columbus," 358.) All three photographs of Tupelo were taken by Walker Evans as part of his work for a different Depression era federal program, the Farm Security Administration.