How a Michigan Lumberman Put Lucedale on the Map

In 1889, Gregory M. Luce came down from Grand Rapids, Michigan with his wife Sarah, his son Jex and $20,000 to invest in the longleaf pine country. He built a lumber and turpentine business, and when the town was incorporated in June 1901 with 332 people, it took his name. (Century Bank, City of Lucedale)

Luce opened the Bank of Lucedale in 1903 at Main and Mill, the bank we know today as Century Bank. His railroad, later the Mississippi Export Railroad, carried timber out and growth in. (WKRG)

George County followed on March 16, 1910, carved from Jackson and Greene counties and named for Senator James Z. George. Back then, 96 percent of the county's farm workers owned their land, the highest rate in Mississippi. (Mississippi Encyclopedia)

Then in 1953, Rev. Walter Harvell Jackson started building Palestine Gardens out of cinder block, a Holy Land where one yard equals one mile. It opened in 1960 and still welcomes visitors. (MS Gulf Coast Heritage)

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