Three Golden Age Favorites in Mississippi’s Queen City

What does the Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum, a Dentzel antique carousel, and graves of Gypsy royalty have in common?
 
All three are located in Meridian, Mississippi. This eclectic mix of sites are some of Meridian's more interesting locations dating back to the Golden Age.

Meridian, Mississippi, only 20 miles from the Alabama border,  was established at the junction of the Mobile & Ohio and the Vicksburg & Montgomery Railway lines in 1860.  With rail transportation at the height of its popularity, the town boomed from 1890 to 1930. During its Golden Age, people flocked to Meridian, and it became Mississippi's largest city and a leading center for manufacturing in the South.

The Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum

The Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum is the home of America's last intact steam engine factory. Once known as Soulé Steam Feed Works, the factory is an industrial time capsule dating in appearance to around the end of the Industrial Revolution. Some of the machinery in the belt-driven machine shop dates to the early 1900s. At 106 feet long, the machine shop was once America's longest operating line drive shaft​.

Soule Steam Feed Works Machine Shop

Approximately 80% of the factory's furnishings and machinery are original to the site. The factory only received a few modernizations in its 110 years of operation. In the 1950s, Soulé replaced half of the belt-driven lathes with more modern ones. In the late 1970s, the company modernized the foundry but left the original cupola furnace and core-making shop undisturbed.

The company's founder, George Wilberforce Soulé, patented over 40 inventions between 1885 and 1930. Most of his designs were incorporated into products for sawmills around the South, but he also had many steam engine technology innovations. The company sold the products it produced worldwide.

The Soulé Steam Feed Works was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and became a Mississippi Landmark in 2003.

Tap and Die Set

Little Giant Power Hammer

Wear Your Goggles Safety Sign

A hand forged cross in the blacksmithing area.

An antique Underwood 3 Typewriter in the Soule office.

Mold Storage Area in the Forge

Working on Patterns

Belt Driven

Soule Pattern Storage

 The Mississippi Industrial Heritage Museum is located at:  1808 4th St, Meridian, MS.

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The Dentzel Antique Carousel at Highland Park

Dentzel Carousel

This Dentzel carousel was manufactured in 1896 by Gustav Dentzel for the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. In 1909, it was sold to the city of Meridian, Mississippi, for $2,000. It's valued at over a million dollars today!

Dentzel Carousel Horse

Dentzel only manufactured two to three carousels yearly and supplied parks throughout the East and South. He hand-carved his animals out of poplar or basswood, and many, like this one, had original oil paintings.

When the Carousel arrived in Meridian, it was placed in Highland Park in a Carousel House designed by Dentzel. The Carousel is the world's only two-row stationary Dentzel menagerie. This Carousel House is the only original Carousel House building built from a Dentzel blueprint left in existence.

In 1977, the Dentzel Carousel and the Carousel House were placed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated National Landmarks in 1986.

Eleven other Carousels nationwide have received this honor, but Meridian's is the only one located in the South.

 The Dentzel Carousel is located at:  1802 Carousel Dr, Meridian, MS.

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The Graves of Gypsy Royalty

A Tribute to Gypsy Royalty

Emil and Kelly Mitchell, the Gypsy king and queen, are buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian, Mississippi.

In 1915, the queen of the Romany Gypsy clan, Kelly Mitchell, died at 47 while giving birth to her 15th child. King Emil, needing time to gather the Gypsies together for the funeral, chose Meridian (40 miles away) since it was the closest "Gypsy friendly" town that had an ice house able to preserve her remains.

Queen Kelly laid in state for twelve days, more than 20,000 Gypsies came to Meridian for the visitation, and  5,000 of them attended her funeral.

King Emil later remarried and lived another 27 years but chose to be buried next to his queen.

According to legend, if you leave a tribute on Queen Kelly's grave, she will visit you in your dreams and solve your problems. Many still see the graves, leaving offerings of trinkets, food, and other items.

The Gypsy graves are located at Rose Hill Cemetery: 40th Avenue, Meridian, Mississippi.

Drive straight through the cemetery gate. The graves will be on the right when the road curves to the left​.

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You can find more of Susan's Mississippi Travel Photography in the Mississippi Collection. Susan's work is available for purchase in the Gallery.  Her images are available as wall art, fine art prints, home decor, gift items, and apparel. 

Dentzel Carousel shown framed in frame design VN7.

Forged Cross Flat Face Mask

Carousel Horse 60x80 Fleece Blanket

Wear Your Goggles Coffee Mug

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 About the Photographer

Susan Rissi Tregoning is the 8th photographer in the past four generations of professional photographers in her family. After a long career as an art buyer and interior designer, she put her career on hold in 2006 to travel with her husband and his job. In the process, she found her “roots” again,  developing a photography obsession far beyond casual snapshots that evolved into a desire to capture every location and object as “art.” By meshing her two loves, photography and design, she has come full circle. Only now, she is creating art instead of just purchasing it.  

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