Mississippi Blues Trail
Cache Challenge
The Mississippi Blues Trail was established by the Mississippi Bureau of Tourism to recognize the unique connection our state has with a style of music known as the "Mississippi Blues" or simply "the Blues." Many musicians acquired fame, and for some fortune, playing this style of music. The MBT decided to recognize these artists and their beginnings here in Mississippi.
The MBT divided the state into five basic regions where Blues Trail markers are placed.
These markers are in places of historical significance to the blues music heritage. Each marker tells about a specific piece of that history. The vast majority of these markers are in the Delta region in the northwest part of the state.
This challenge involves visiting those historical MS Blues Trail markers scattered out around the state of Mississippi...and even beyond.
Participating cities include : Tupelo,Columbus,Jackson,Holly Springs,Cleveland,Clarksdale,University of Mississippi,Aberdeen,Meridian,Vickburg...
At or near many of these markers there is a geocache hidden. Your quest is to visit these markers and find the geocaches associated with them.
Each Blues Trail Geocache consists of one find towards the final goal of 50 Blues Trail Geocaches in order for challenge completion for final.
Here is a bookmark link to the current blues trail caches -Mississippi Blues Caches
We hope your ventures along the way
to completion of this challenge are both
memorable and rewarding!
The "Peavine" branch of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad met the Memphis to Vickburg mainline at this site. From the late 1890s through the 1930s, the "Peavine" provided reliable transportation for bluesmen among the plantations of the Mississippi Delta. Charley Patton made the branch famous through his popular "Pea Vine Blues."
Born in April 1891, between Edwards and Bolton in southern Mississippi, Charley Patton was the scrawny child of sharecropper parents. In 1900, his family moved 100 miles north to the Delta and the Will Dockery Plantation. There Patton fell under the spell of guitarist Henry Sloan and would follow him to gigs. By 1910, he had become proficient as a performer and songwriter, having already composed "Down The Dirt Road Blues," a slow drag called "Banty Rooster Blues," and his theme song "Pony Blues."
Prior to the late 1800s, most of the Mississippi Delta region was covered by swamps, thick forests, and canebrakes. Early plantations were established in areas less prone to flooding, and lumber companies used the Delta’s waterways to transport their products to the Mississippi River and on to distant destinations. However, these efforts were complicated by flooding, seasonal shifts in water levels, and the need for expensive dredging.
A solution came in the form of railways, which were first introduced in the 1870s and criss-crossed the Delta by the early 1890s.The railway system allowed cotton production to flourish, with many plantations served by small lines. One of these was the Kimball Lake Branch, known locally as the "Peavine Branch," which bluesman Charley Patton saluted in his 1929 Paramount Records recording, "Pea Vine Blues." The Peavine, originally two narrow-gauge lines run by local entrepreneurs–including a lumber company in Boyle–was taken over in the late 1890s by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Company (called the Y&MV).
The line ran from Dockery Plantation, where Patton lived, and then ten miles west to Boyle, where it connected with the "Yellow Dog" (the local slang name for the Y&MV line), which led to Cleveland and points beyond. The term "peavine" was commonly used for railways that followed indirect routes, resembling the vines of the pea plant. Wisconsin-based Paramount Records’ advertising department used a drawing of an actual pea plant to promote Patton's record.
"Pea Vine Blues" is one of many blues songs about railways–a popular metaphor for escape as well as the primary means by which African Americans left the South during the Great Migration. The song’s meaning was clear to Delta residents, but obscure to others. Patton's song inspired other recordings on the "peavine" theme by artists including John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Williams, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Charlie Musselwhite, and Rory Block, among others. The leading Japanese blues record company named itself P-Vine Special in 1975 and reissued all of Patton's recordings on CD in 1992.
