Stone County Schools

Stone County is located in the southeastern portion of Mississippi. Stone County was formed on January 6, 1916 from the northern part of Harrison County. It was the eighty-first county formed in the state, and is the sixty-second in area. Stone County was named for Mississippi Governor, John M. Stone who served as governor from 1876 to 1882 and aga... in from 1890 to 1896. Earl Brewer was the state Governor at the time of organization. The county seat is Wiggins, named for Wiggins Hatten who was one of its earliest residents and prominant in developing local schools. The first white settlers in the area traveled mostly from Georgia and South Carolina. While still known as Niles City, the first store was built in 1894. The name was changed to Wiggins when the post office was established in 1898, then the town was incorporated in 1904. Prior to 1916 Wiggins was part of Harrison County, but in that year Stone County was created from a portion of Harrison County. The Stone County courthouse was built in Wiggins the following year. Around 1893 the G & SI Railroad was completed. Soon a large sawmill was built in Wiggins by the Finkbine Lumber Company. When area timber sources were exhausted, the company bought redwood logs from the Pacific Coast and had them shipped by boat to Gulfport then up the G & SI Railroad to Today's Highway 531 in Smith County runs along what was once Andrew Jackson's Military Road, according to most historians. This road was a Nashville to New Orleans route improved by the federal government and later named in honor of Jackson. With the closure of the mill, local farmers were encouraged to clear the cut-over land in the area and become truck farmers. It was soon discovered that cucumbers would grow easily in the area soil. The Brown-Miller Company built and operated a pickle factory in Wiggins and for many years many hundreds of train cars of pickles were shipped out of the town annually. The county has a total area of 448.07 square miles, of which 445.37 square miles is land and 2.71 square ...Read More