The 20 Best Small Towns to Visit in 2013
From the blues to the big top, we’ve picked the most intriguing small towns to enjoy arts and smarts
- By Susan Spano
- Smithsonian magazine, April 2013
(Jane Rule Burden)
The Mississippi Delta, as the Southern essayist David L. Cohn famously put it, “begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg.” The land is pancake flat, some of it below sea level, all soldierly fields of cotton, rice and soybeans, cut lengthwise by a railroad and later by Highway 61. Outlanders seeking the prettified Old South of Tara come away disappointed, but other visitors find culture as deep and rich as the soil, especially those who’ve heard the “Pea Vine Blues” sung by early bluesman Charley Patton.
American music would not be what it is today without the blues. It welled up in the Delta—arguably at Dockery Farms plantation, five miles east of Cleveland—for myriad reasons. But ultimately, said Tricia Walker, director of the Delta Music Institute at Cleveland’s Delta State University, “There was nothing to do at the end of the day but sit on the porch and play.”
There’s more to do now in Cleveland. New blood has washed through town, restoring the Historic Crosstie business district with its beguiling Railroad Heritage Museum, bringing an arts alliance to a vintage movie theater, filling rehabbed warehouses with galleries and restaurants. Creative young locals surprise even themselves by coming home to stay after college, though their art group’s wry motto—“Keep Cleveland Boring”—confounds elders. And here’s something for the front page: In early 2015 a $12 million Grammy Museum will open on the DSU campus.
The university, which opened in 1925 as a teacher’s college, kept Cleveland alive and draws audiences for concerts, dance, theater and film to its stylish Bologna Performing Arts Center. The Delta Center for Culture and Learning offers tours, lectures and workshops. The university’s Dave “Boo” Ferriss Museum celebrates a Delta-born Boston Red Sox pitcher and longtime DSU coach. The Delta Music Institute prepares students for careers in the industry and sends new talent to local clubs like Hey Joe’s, On the Rocks and the Pickled Okra.
No matter how hard Cleveland pulls toward the New South, it persists as an authentic Delta town where historic markers are about as common as stop signs. Chiefly shaped by white Methodists and black Baptists, it benefited from surprising infusions of Chinese and Italian immigrants enticed to Delta cotton fields, traveling Jewish salesmen, Irish mule traders and Mexicans who gave Cleveland its taste for tamales. The region’s literary bent produced Eudora Welty and Willie Morris, their work underscoring the Delta’s loquacity.
The talk these days is likely to be about football at Country Platter, favored by graduates of predominantly black East Side High School, several of whom went on to play for the NFL. Co-owner Jimmy Williams can tell you about Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy attending civil rights meetings on the premises and the health benefits of fried chicken, yams and peach cobbler cooked without too much oil. “The trouble is people are lazy,” he says. “They got to burn it off.”
The countryside east of town yields more history. Dockery Farms Foundation (a former plantation) vividly describes the sharecropping system that kept blacks in poverty or sent them into the Northern diaspora. Freedom Riders were held at nearby Parchman Prison. The 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till by two white men, likely in the hamlet of Drew, helped wake up a nation to the plight of Southern African-Americans. And then there’s the town of Mound Bayou, founded in 1887 by former slaves—the first haven of its kind in the United States—once with its own bank, train depot, swimming pool and hospital. The village, alas, now molders along Highway 61, but Peter’s Pottery thrives. It was started in 1998 by the Woods brothers, who learned the art of working native clay at McCarty Pottery, a celebrated ceramics gallery and garden down the road in Merigold.
It’s just a few winding, washboard miles to Po’ Monkey’s, set in open farmland crisscrossed by hickory breaks and bayous. A dilapidated collection of add-ons and lean-tos, it’s like all the other rural juke joints that once lit up the night sky, beckoning folks to dance, drink and listen to guitar slides. Fans kept stealing the historic marker out front so proprietor Willie Seaberry put a fence around it. Po’ Monkey’s is all about the blues—“No rap, period,” says Seaberry. Standing outside with the sun sinking and the lights of Cleveland blinking on, you can just about hear James “Son” Thomas, whose uncle taught him to play the blues by marking three chords on the neck of a guitar:
I ain’t gonna pick no cotton.
I ain’t gonna drag no sack.
I ain’t gonna do nothing ’til my baby get back.
Sign up for our free email newsletter and receive the best stories from Smithsonian.com each week.
Comments (76)
+ View All Comments
I couldn't agree more with your decision to put Petoskey on the list of summer "go to" places. I started vacationing there in 1988. I rented a place in Bay View for twelve years and knew it was where I wanted (and needed) to spend my summers! My husband surprised me by putting in an offer on a cottage in Bay View in 1999. The rest is history.... I will be packing my bags next week for my annual pilgrimage north! Thanks for recognizing the beauty of northern Michigan. Jane Austin
Posted by Jane Austin on May 10,2013 | 12:52 PM
Thank you for that great recognition. My book won the 2011 State History Award "Bay View, an American Idea" covers the close relationship of Bay View and the Hemingway family. Hemingway's mother a fine singer was deeply involved in the women's movement in Chicago and many of the women spoke in Bay View. His sisters both fine musicians performed on the Bay View stage - one a harpist and the other a violist. His aunt was a nationally known children's story tell who taught in Bay View.His brother in law was the grand nephew of John M.Hall the creator of the Bay View Assembly reading circle and magazine. Sterling met Marcelline in Bay View while she was staying at the home of Trumbull White. The family were close friends of Bay View assembly director Trumbull White who was a nationally known editor, writer, and war correspondent. Hemingway saught advice from him as a writer and the first thing Hemingway did was to take off to war.
Posted by Mary Jane Doerr on May 10,2013 | 09:17 AM
I agree. Fairfield, Ia is a most unique city. Surely a farm town but with an amazing quality of life not to be found elsewhere. J Las Vegas, Nv
Posted by Janice W on May 2,2013 | 05:43 PM
Fairfield is not only #7 small town to visit, it is one of the very best to live in. Homes are a bargain from 3 bedrooms under $100,000 to a 15 acre 8000 sq.. feet home with lake and barn for horses for under $600,000. Most everything seems unbelievably inexpensive.
Posted by Chet Swanson on April 22,2013 | 10:15 PM
Naples, Fl was on thr 2012 list and should have made this one. Great West Coast of Florida town for class, art, shopping, boating, beaches, golf,tennis, 3rd street, 5th ave, great dining, etc. Not just a place for winter snow-birds. Been everywhere and this is where I picked for home-sweet-home. Some may think a little high toned and up-erty? Well thats all great with us!!
Posted by Andy on April 19,2013 | 09:34 PM
Wyoming has many great small towns !!
Posted by Mary Link on April 18,2013 | 03:06 PM
MOST ANNOYING HAVING TO CLICK THRU ALL JUST TO SEE IF A CERTAIN TOWN WAS ON THE LIST. I FINALLY QUIT AT #5.
Posted by LARRY NELSON on April 12,2013 | 12:28 AM
Why not do something a little closer to home you know like Manassas/Bullrun or Lexington
Posted by Joey on April 11,2013 | 09:40 PM
Great article! Author Susan Spano is a college classmate, her travel stories are always interesting!
Posted by Eileen Murray on April 10,2013 | 07:11 PM
I, for one, didn't need confirmation of something I already knew: that Gettysburg is the best small town travel site in America. (But I'm glad it has been recognized in the Smithsonian Mag as well.) Gettysburg has something for everyone and I feel it's safe to say I can't think of anyone I know that would not enjoy a trip there. I love it there so much that I've seriously thought of packing up and moving to the area - leaving friends and family behind.
Posted by Chris Shelton on April 10,2013 | 03:44 PM
How I can get a tour?
Posted by methu on April 10,2013 | 02:20 PM
We love Gettysburg! So happy that the Smithsonian acknowleged this great town. Just a tip - Hauser Estate Winery, is our favorite.
Posted by Abby White on April 9,2013 | 12:43 PM
I grew up in cleveland and was elated to see the article
Posted by Gayle O'Quinn on April 7,2013 | 02:05 PM
unnecessarily unwieldy to look through cool idea, horrible format. UP YO GAME SMITHSONIAN
Posted by dpl on April 4,2013 | 09:35 PM
+ View All Comments