Nanachehaw, Mississippi

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Nanachehaw, Mississippi, is an extinct settlement in Warren County, located in the Walnut Hills near the Big Black River. It was also known as Allen Station. The name’s origin isn’t certain: some say it meant “fish hill,” but a Muskogean-language study suggests Nanachehaw comes from nanachiha, a kind of cedar.

- In the 18th century, Nanachehaw was the site of an Indian trading post run by Garret Rapalje and his sons.
- In 1796, George Rapalje noted scrap iron left behind by earlier settlers near Nanachehaw.
- Nanachehaw Plantation, originally founded by the Rapalje family, was located on high ground along the Loosa Chitto near a Choctaw place called Nanachehaw. In the 1850s and 1860s, the Charles Allen family managed it. By 1860, the plantation covered at least 793 acres, grew cotton and corn, and used the labor of 113 enslaved people (including 38 children) in various roles.
- After the Civil War, the Nanachehaw plantation was offered for rent.
- A Nanachehaw post office opened in 1881 along the Mississippi Valley and Ship Island Railroad, with C. B. Allen as postmaster. The road to Allen ran off U.S. Route 61 at Yokena.
- During the June 5–6, 1916 tornado outbreak, several deaths on the road between Yokena and Nanachehaw were recorded.
- The town had two hotels (one for white residents and one for Black residents), several stores, many houses, and a school. The major employer was the Allen Cooperative Company, which ran a sawmill, stave mill, and veneer plant, employing hundreds of workers. Nanachehaw, also called Allen Station, was a stop on the Illinois Central Railroad and its predecessors.
- The town faded after the sawmill closed. The Nanachehaw post office closed in 1947, and the voting location at Allen’s Station was gone by 1948.