D'Lo, Mississippi

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Coordinates: 31°59′12″N 89°54′4″W / 31.98667, -89.90111
D'Lo, Mississippi
Location of D'Lo, Mississippi
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Simpson
Area
- Total	0.7 sq mi (1.8 km²)
- Land	0.7 sq mi (1.8 km²)
- Water	0.0 sq mi (0.0 km²)
Elevation	299 ft (91 m)
Population (2000)
- Total	394
- Density	569.7/sq mi (219.9/km²)
Time zone	Central (CST) (UTC-6)
- Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP code	39062
Area code(s)	601
FIPS code	28-19340
GNIS feature ID	0669070

D'Lo is a town in Simpson County, Mississippi, along the Strong River. The population was 394 at the 2000 census.

D'Lo was featured in Life Magazine for sending proportionally more men to serve in World War II than any other town of its size; 38 percent of the men who lived in D'Lo served.

1 Geography
2 Town History
3 Origins of the Name D’Lo
4 Demographics
5 Education
6 Entertainment Attractions
7 Town Facts
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Geography

D'Lo is located at 31°59′12″N, 89°54′4″W (31.986665, -89.901030)^[1].

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.7 square miles (1.8 km²), all of it land.

[edit] Town History

D’Lo was originally known as the village of Millhaven during the early 1800’s due to the many water mills that dotted the Strong River in that area. It wasn’t until 1874 that the first home was built there and the population began to grow slowly.

In 1881 many of the community members gathered and discussed the major need for a post office in the area. After contacting the postal authorities it was agreed that a post office could be opened but the name Millhaven would not be allowed due to several factors, one being that the name was simply too long. In response the postal department submitted the community a list of alternative names, all of which were four letters long including one called Delo. When the citizens chose this name a penman responded with a letter to the postal authorities declaring the name they had chosen. He wrote this letter using a fancy colonial script which would have put the little ‘e’ up above the ‘lo’. Legend leads us to believe that the postal clerk that received this letter misinterpreted the ‘e’ as an apostrophe and on June 15, 1881 officially named the village D’Lo. Several decades later Gulf and Ship Island Railroad was allowed to lay tracks through this village known as D’Lo resulting in a surge of the population. Due to this increase of settlers in the community, on October 27, 1905 the Governor James K. Vardamin declared D’Lo to be an official town.

The Town of D’Lo really began to take off in 1916 when the Finkbine Lumber Company chose D’Lo as the destination for a $1,000,000 sawmill plant. Finkbine also constructed many homes in the community for their workers as well as a combination drygoods, hardware, grocery store, farm supply, feed and seed, general store known as Kew Mercantile Company. During the peak of the Finkbine’s sawmill plant operation, between 1916 and 1930, D’Lo was recognized as the largest town between Jackson, Mississippi and Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The town featured two large YMCA buildings, a movie theater, ten grocery stores, a furniture store, three appliance dealers, ten gas stations, seven butcher markets, a dry cleaner, five cafes, three auto shops, a boat building and cabinet shop, a machine shop, three pharmacies, a bank, lighted basketball courts, a professional basketball and baseball team, and even a news paper called The D’Lo Herald. Also included in the town was a Baptist and Methodist church, a three story brick school with 550 students and 17 teachers, and a three story hospital called Pine View which was considered to be the best hospital between Jackson, Mississippi, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, as far as equipment and doctors were concerned. During this time the population of D’Lo was estimated to be around 5,000 which made it the second largest milling town in the United States. Unfortunately by the 1930’s the Finkbine Mill had consumed almost all the timber in the surrounding counties resulting in the plant being shut down for good.

With the Finkbine sawmill closed, D’Lo began to see a major decline in population which had a tremendous effect on the economy there as well. It wasn’t until several years later that D’Lo was able to bounce back. This was mainly due to the fact that Highway 49 had just been paved through D’Lo and a second growth of timber was now available in the surrounding areas. With the new highway and more timber to mill, D’Lo seemed to be back on its feet with a new hardwood sawmill that reportedly supplied timber to firms that built weapons and equipment for World War II. Although this hardwood mill was effective at keeping D’Lo afloat for many years, it unfortunately was never a large enough operation to recoup the huge lose of population. The Town of D’Lo which once had an estimated population of 5,000 residents had dramatically dropped to around 400 during the 1940’s and still to this day has an estimated population of about 400.

Although D’Lo suffered a huge lose in population it did not stop the town from being one of the most patriotic American towns during the World War II era. Out of a tiny population of about 400, there were around 150 men and boys from the town to serve in the Armed Forces during World War II. That was not to mention the estimated 46 volunteers that also served prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. There were so many citizens of D’Lo serving in World War II that the July 1942 cover of Life Magazine featured a picture of two young boys standing in the deserted streets of D’Lo with the Headline, “D’Lo Men Have Gone Off to War” with a caption that stated, “There is a war and a country is in danger. When that happens the men drop what they are doing and go off from the deep southern hamlet of D’Lo Miss.”. The town has since been recognized with a monument located at the town’s community center which lists the names of all the D’Lo citizens that served in the Armed Forces during World War II.

[edit] Origins of the Name D’Lo

The most controversial piece of D’Lo history is the origins of the name itself. There are currently three different stories that explain how the odd name of D’Lo originated.

The oldest and probably the most common story is one that could easily be categorized as an “old wives tale”. This story claims that an early settler referred to the D’Lo area around the Strong River where it commonly floods as being “too damn Low”. When it came time for the village to get a post office he suggested that the village be named “too damn low” but the postal authorities would not approve of the profanity in the name. As an alternative someone came up with the name D-Low which over the years simply became the shortened version of D’Lo.

The next story came about after D’Lo’s original name, Millhaven, was reject by the Postal Authorities as a town name. Purportedly the US Postal Service provided the village a list of alternative, four letter names for the residents to choose from. Among these names was one spelled “Delo”. After the citizens chose this name a penman prepared a letter to be sent back to the Postmaster informing him of the name they had chosen. This letter was written in a fancy colonial script which more than likely would have put the little ‘e’ in Delo up above the ‘lo’. The story concludes that the Postmaster more than likely misinterpreted the little ‘e’ as an apostrophe and therefore documented the village name as being D’Lo.

The final story also came about when the name Millhaven was rejected by the postal authorities as being an acceptable name for a town. The difference in this story is that the citizens of the village came up with the new name “De Leau”. This name was submitted and approved by the Postmaster but was later shortened to just D’Lo. Although this story seemed far fetched the University of Southern Mississippi has proven that old maps from 16th century French Explorers shows that they labeled the D’Lo area around the Strong River with the words “De leau sans potable”. This translates to “bad drinking water” which means that the word De leau actually is French for water. This leads us to believe that very early settlers and explores may have been referring to this area as De leau and therefore that is why such an odd name was originally chosen to be the official village name.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^[2] of 2000, there were 394 people, 179 households, and 114 families residing in the town. The population density was 569.7 people per square mile (220.5/km²). There were 206 housing units at an average density of 297.8/sq mi (115.3/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 79.19% White, 19.54% African American, 0.51% Native American, 0.25% Pacific Islander, and 0.51% from two or more races.

There were 179 households out of which 24.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.3% were married couples living together, 10.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.8% were non-families. 34.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 19.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.77.

In the town the population was spread out with 20.3% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 22.6% from 25 to 44, 27.9% from 45 to 64, and 19.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 79.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.5 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $28,750, and the median income for a family was $33,125. Males had a median income of $27,500 versus $21,731 for females. The per capita income for the town was $15,469. About 11.7% of families and 13.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.6% of those under age 18 and 17.6% of those age 65 or over.

[edit] Education

The Town of D'Lo is served by the Simpson County School District.

[edit] Entertainment Attractions

Currently, D'Lo has water park called D'Lo Water Park on the Strong River which runs through the town of D'Lo.

In the past, D'Lo had a 1 screen movie theatre called the Lux Theatre located in downtown. Sadly, the theatre only endured the 1950s.

[edit] Town Facts

A portion of the 2000 film "Oh Brother Where Art Thou", known as the "Siren Scene" was filmed on the banks of the Strong River at the D'Lo Water Park.

The famous aircraft carrier the USS Lexington which was sank in 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea was constructed in some areas with lumber that had been milled in D'Lo Mississippi.