Researching old communities sometimes reveals information about thriving towns from days of yore now consisting of little more than a volunteer fire department and a church or two. Bexley is one such place.
Located in north central George County, Bexley’s storied past includes a post office, store, hotel and lumber company. Interestingly, names of early postmasters overlap with names of investors in the lumber company and hotel.
From 1900 until 1971 Bexley had a post office although in its final years it was referred to as a rural station. When the Post Office Department, now called the U.S. Post Office, first opened a postal operation in 1900 at Bexley, the community was a promising settlement on a railroad. The community’s namesake, John James (J.J.) Bexley, built the hotel in 1900 and became the first postmaster. He operated the post office out of the hotel. John O. Gresham followed as postmaster in 1902. Joseph G. Leatherbury served in that capacity 1904 until 1921 when Albert Dickerson became postmaster. Dickerson served 38 years retiring in 1959. His wife, Addie, then took it over. That is when it became known as Bexley Rural Station. Lucedale postal workers brought the mail pouch to Bexley for residents who received mail at a box inside the post office. A Lucedale carrier served residents on the rural home delivery route.
Albert and Addie Dickerson bought the hotel from Joseph Leatherbury in 1921. The hotel sat near the railroad, the MJ&KC at that time, and train passengers departed the train at the Bexley station to sleep at the hotel. The train stop had a depot; however, the depot burned in 1923. The Dickersons lived in the hotel with their children. The hotel had nine bedrooms upstairs and nine bedrooms downstairs. It also had a kitchen, dining room and living area. The Dickersons fed meals to guests and shared dining and living areas.
At some point the federal postal service required Dickerson to house the postal operation in a separate building from the hotel. He built a store next door and housed the post office there. In 1949 a fire destroyed the store and hotel. No one was home as the Dickerson family was visiting relatives a few miles away. Neighbors found them and informed them of the fire, but it was too late to save the structures. Dickerson rebuilt a store and post office to replace the burned one. However, instead of a hotel he built a house.
Donna and Frank Bexley now own that house, which is located on Bexley Road South. Donna is the Dickersons’ granddaughter and provided much information on Bexley’s post office history. Other information came from By the Rivers of Water, Volume II, by Rev. Harvell Jackson and from the website Mississippi Rails: Mississippi’s Railroad History and Heritage.
The sawmill at Bexley started as the Diamond Lumber Company, and was incorporated on Nov. 27, 1901, by John Gresham, Charles Hall and J.J. Bexley with an authorized capital stock of $25,000. Gresham served as president and general manager. The company hauled logs using dummy lines throughout the area and cut 50,000 feet a day of Longleaf Pine.
However, times must have been tough because on Oct. 27, 1902, the company mortgaged its sawmill plant, timber and logging railroad to George S. Leatherbury, Jr., of Mobile, Ala. in return for a loan of $10,000. Evidently the mortgage went into default, because on Oct. 3, 1903, Leatherbury bought the entire assets at foreclosure. To operate on the acquired property, Leatherbury and two other men incorporated the Greene County Lumber Company Jan. 17, 1904. The other two men were Charles A. Cunningham and John Shearer, and the company’s authorized capital stock was $50,000. Leatherbury, who became president of the company, deeded the Diamond Lumber Company property to the Greene County Lumber Company on March 16, 1904. It was so called because at that time, Bexley sat in Greene County as George County was not developed until 1910.
The mill shut down in 1918 and the site was sold to Mrs. Joseph G. Leatherbury, who in turn leased it and the mill buildings to J.M. Hemphill of Mobile, Ala. on March 19, 1918. The lease was to run five years with rent $1,000 annually. However, this lease lasted less than a year. Hemphill established a new operation at Byrd in Greene County on the new Blodgett branch of the Gulf, Mobile & Northern Railroad. Additional research did not divulge what happened to the Bexley lumber company buildings after the operation stopped.
The building that once housed the store and post office still stands. The railroad still crosses there, but no signs of a hotel or large lumber operation are evident.
