Things to Do in Columbus, Mississippi

The playwright was born Thomas Lanier Williams III in 1911 and spent his earliest years in this Victorian house, built around 1875 as the rectory of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. His grandfather, the Rev. Walter Dakin, served there. Today it’s a museum with period furnishings and exhibits on his early life, and a National Literary Landmark.

★ Good to know Make it your first stop: it doubles as the city’s official visitor center, so you can pick up maps and ask which homes are open.

Each spring, owners open restored pre-Civil War homes to visitors, and special events fill the calendar around the tours. It’s Columbus’ signature event and the easiest way to see inside houses that stay private the rest of the year. It runs for about ten days in early April.

★ Good to know Come in the second week to catch Catfish in the Alley, held at the end of Pilgrimage.

Built in 1848, this house still holds its original furnishings. Owner and curator Sid Caradine is the seventh generation of his family to live here, and gardens surround the house. It’s been featured in the New York Times travel section.

★ Good to know It’s best known as a Pilgrimage home in azalea and wisteria season, but it’s open for tours year-round.

Maj. Thomas Blewett finished this brick Italianate mansion in 1847, and it later belonged to Confederate Gen. Stephen D. Lee’s family. A 1959 fire nearly doomed it, and local preservationists restored it. It now holds the Florence McLeod Hazard Museum’s Civil War collections.

★ Good to know Outside Pilgrimage it opens one day a week or by appointment, so call ahead.

The Odd Fellows founded this cemetery in 1849, and rows of marble stones mark 2,194 Confederate soldiers, many brought here after Shiloh. The 1866 decoration of both sides’ graves inspired Francis Miles Finch’s poem “The Blue and the Gray.” It now covers 70 acres and about 22,000 graves.

★ Good to know Each April, Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science students perform Tales from the Crypt here at night, playing people buried in the cemetery.

This alley between Main and College streets was the center of Black business and social life in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It took its name from the catfish sandwiches sold there. Saturdays brought farmers to trade news, and some of the best blues players in the South performed nearby.

★ Good to know Download Visit Columbus’ African American Culture Map to find the Penny-Savings Bank, Union Academy and other sites nearby.

Opened in 2005, this 4.4-mile walking and biking trail starts at Main Street downtown and follows the Tombigbee River. Along the way you’ll find two pavilions, restrooms, picnic tables, a covered stage for concerts and a butterfly garden.

★ Good to know Start at the downtown end on Main Street and turn around whenever you like.

This state park wraps a 150-acre lake with fishing, camping, cabins and kayak rentals. The 18-hole disc golf course is a local favorite. The 5.6-mile Opossum Trail has a self-guided tour of native plants, trees and wildlife.