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History · Sumner

Sumner’s post office opened in 1892, and 32% of its homes were built before 1940

Its Register listings are the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse and the Murphey-Jennings House. Below: maps from 1931 on and the census since 1910.

1892first post office
2on the National Register
32%homes built before 1940
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Quick answers

How Sumner began

When was Sumner founded?

1892

The Sumner post office opened in 1892, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 364 in 19102020 census: 278134 years
Founding year: the first Sumner post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Sumner’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Sumner are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Boom and bustPeaked at 662 in 1940; 278 people lived here in 2020.Old housesHalf of Sumner’s homes were built before 1962.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Sumner’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Sumner’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
People over time

Sumner, census by census

0100200300400500600700192019401960198020002020Peak: 662

Peaked at 662 in 1940; 278 people lived here in 2020.

12 censuses, 1910–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Sumner’s Wikipedia page.

The story

How Sumner came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Sumner.

Read it all →

The heavily wooded swamp along the Tallahatchie River was historically part of the Choctaw Nation, one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast. Ceding large amounts of territory to the United States, they were forced to remove to Indian Territory in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act.

Afterward the US government sold the lands to European-American families. Among the early settlers were the Sumner family. The bottomland was covered by trees, vines, and underbrush when the pioneers started clearing the land for agriculture. The wealthiest men developed their property through the labor of enslaved African Americans. Their work on cotton plantations produced the commodity crop that was the basis of the economy for decades.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Sumner, 1892 to 1940

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1892Post officeThe Sumner post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1904BuiltMurphey-Jennings House is built
  5. 1910BuiltTallahatchie County Second District Courthouse is built
  6. 1931On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  7. 1940CensusPopulation peaks at 662
By decade

Sumner, decade by decade

Today1 recent
Sumner MS Downtown2018Sumner MS Downtown
On the map

Sumner on the map, 1931 to 1983

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Sumner. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Sumner on the 1931 USGS mapSumner on the 1962 USGS mapSumner on the 1974 USGS mapSumner on the 1983 USGS map1931Sumner sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Sumner.

On the National Register

2 historic places in Sumner

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

places listed
2
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
2
each building in a district counts
first listed
1982
Murphey-Jennings House
Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse, built 1910Murphey-Jennings House, built 1904
Buildings

Architectural styles listings

Late Victorian1
Richardsonian Romanesque1
Colonial Revival1
Queen Anne1
Tallahatchie County Second District CourthouseLate Victorian · Built 1910
All 2 listings
Murphey-Jennings HouseBuilding · listed 1982

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Questions about Sumner’s history

What year was Sumner founded?

The Sumner post office opened in 1892, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Sumner?

Two places: the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse (listed 2007) and the Murphey-Jennings House (1982).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (1), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (2), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.