Founded in 1836 along the Mississippi River, Friar's Point was once the largest cotton shipping center south of Memphis. The historic port town remains the only place in Coahoma County with public access to the banks of the Mississippi River and is one of a few public access points to the river in the entire Mississippi Delta region. Friar's Point continues to be a point of interest for music and literary enthusiasts who travel the Delta. Blues legend Robert Johnson is said to have played in front of Hirsberg's Drugstore and made reference to Friar's Point in the song "Traveling Riverside Blues." The town has been written about by famous Mississippi writers Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner. It also is the birthplace of country music legend Conway Twitty.
Coahoma
Delta Blues Museum /
http://www.deltabluesmuseum.org/
(662) 627-6820
The award-winning Delta Blues Museum is the state of Mississippi's oldest music museum. Established in 1979 by the Carnegie Public Library Board of Trustees in Clarksdale and re-organized as a stand-alone museum in 1999, the Delta Blues Museum is located in the historic Clarksdale freight depot, a Mississippi Historic Landmark built in 1918 for the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad. The former freight area is devoted to permanent and traveling exhibits. The museum includes the Delta Blues Museum Stage which hosts a year-round music education program as well as lectures and symposia and serves as the main venue for local festivals such as the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in August and the Juke Joint Festival in April.