MISSISSIPPI HISTORY’S BEST KEPT SECRET

by RALPH E. GORDON 

She lacks the grand columns and splendid landscape of the Greek Revival Mansions of Natchez and Vicksburg. Her proud old frame is a little out of plumb but her heart is as pure and strong as the virgin pine timber from which she is built. For almost a century and a half, Boler’s Inn has stood triumphantly over looking Old Jackson Road in Union, Mississippi. The city’s only antebellum structure has served in many capacities since Wesley Boler built the old hotel in eighteen-fifty-six. Originally a stage coach stop on the main road between Montgomery, Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi, she has served as a family home, a newspaper office and even as a wild and wooly saloon. For one night she even served as the head-quarters for an invading army, witnessing the ravages of war at her doorstep. 

As neighboring towns were reduced to smoke and ashes by the army of Yankee General William T. Sherman in February of eighteen-sixty-four, Union escaped the General’s merciless torch, it is believed that Union was spared because of her name. Boler’s Inn’s most famous visitor, Sherman himself spent the night there on February Twenty-first of Eighteen Sixty Four as his Army made it’s return trip to Vicksburg where he began his march trough Chattanooga and Atlanta. 

During the Civil War, soldiers carried their latest and finest weapons on their shoulders or pulled them by horses and mules. In 2005 Boler’s Inn watches in awe as state of the art aircraft from the nearby Meridian Naval Air Station practice war games just above her head. In her youth she greeted covered wagons and heard the whistles of steam engines, now in her golden years she is visited by luxurious sedans and SUVs as Diesel powered trains pass through the City of Union.  

As Mississippi history’s best kept secret, you won’t read much about Boler’s Inn in the history books and it is doubtful that the educational channels will ever air a documentary about her. But she is older than the State Capital and has witnessed more history than most structures in Mississippi. If she could talk, I wonder what she would tell us. Surely she would tell us much about our past and perhaps a little about our future. The care of Boler’s Inn is entrusted to the Foundation for the Preservation of Boler’s Inn, her destiny is in the hands of us all. The Foundation is near completing it’s renovation project of restoring her to her original appearance and dignity. In the summer of 2005 Boler’s Inn will take a new role, the role of museum. It is the hopes of the City of Union and The Foundation that Boler’s Inn finds her place as a living historic marker. 

For more information write , The Union Chamber of Commerce, PO Box 90, Union, MS 39365, call us at 601-774-9586 or e-mail us unioncommerce@bellsouth.net