Port Gibson, Mississippi

Port Gibson, Mississippi
City
Claiborne County Courthouse and Confederate monument in Port Gibson
Flag
Motto:  "Too beautiful to burn"
Location of Port Gibson, Mississippi
Port Gibson, Mississippi Location in the United States
Coordinates: 31°57′22″N 90°58′59″W / 31.95611°N 90.98306°W / 31.95611; -90.98306
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Claiborne
Area [1]
• Total	1.75 sq mi (4.55 km2)
• Land	1.75 sq mi (4.55 km2)
• Water	0.00 sq mi (0.00 km2)
Elevation	118 ft (36 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	1,269
• Density	723.08/sq mi (279.18/km2)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code	39150
Area code	601
FIPS code	28-59560
GNIS feature ID	0676254
Website	portgibsonms.org

Port Gibson is a city in Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 1,567 at the 2010 census.^[2] Port Gibson is the county seat of Claiborne County,^[3] which is bordered on the west by the Mississippi River. It is the site of the Claiborne County Courthouse.

The first European settlers in Port Gibson were French colonists in 1729; it was part of their La Louisiane. After the United States acquired the territory from France in 1803 in the Louisiana Purchase, the town was chartered that same year. To develop cotton plantations in the area after Indian Removal of the 1830s, planters who moved to the state brought with them or imported thousands of enslaved African Americans from the Upper South, disrupting many families. Well before the Civil War, the majority of the county's population were enslaved.

Several notable people are natives of Port Gibson. The town saw action during the American Civil War. Port Gibson has several historical sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places (National Register of Historic Places listings in Claiborne County, Mississippi).

In the twentieth century, Port Gibson was home to The Rabbit's Foot Company. It had a substantial role in the development of blues in Mississippi, operating taverns and juke joints now included on the Mississippi Blues Trail.

With the decline in agricultural jobs since the late twentieth century, because of industrial agriculture, and a lack of other jobs, the city and surrounding rural county have suffered from reduced population and long-term poverty. The peak of population in the city was in 1950. The last major employer, the Port Gibson Oil Works, a cottonseed mill, closed in 2002.