Clinton, Mississippi, is the home of Mississippi College, the state's oldest existing institution of higher learning. Clinton produced statesmen such as Walter Leake, writers and artists such as Barry Hannah and Wyatt Waters, and modern celebrities such as Lance Bass and Mandy Ashford. Today Clinton serves as a bedroom community for Jackson. Clinton began as the Mount Dexter trading post on the Old Natchez Trace. The town was founded as Mount Salus in 1823 by Walter Leake, one of Mississippi's first U.S. senators and the third governor. Six years later, Clinton fell one vote short of becoming the state capital. Through antebellum prosperity, occupation by Union troops, rebirth as a college community, and growth into a postwar suburban center, Clinton and its people have been marked by independence. This pictorial history is a chronicle of Clinton's most indelible individuals, families, and institutions.
