During the segregation era, South Chrisman Street in Cleveland, Mississippi, stood at the center of African American business and social life, serving town residents as well as farm hands and sharecroppers who came in from the countryside on weekends. The street was lined with nightclubs, cafes, hotels, churches, stores, homes, and offices, and its best-known nightspot was the Harlem Inn. South Chrisman Street was a major hub for Bolivar County residents at a time when the county, in the 1920 census, was the state’s most populous at 57,669 and 82.4 percent black, and it had more African American tenant farmers than any other county in Mississippi. As the cotton economy boomed, many African Americans moved into the Delta from Hinds County and elsewhere to work on local plantations, including the family of Charley Patton, a leading figure in early Mississippi blues. Patton and Willie Brown were well known in Cleveland and nearby communities, and guitarist Ernest “Whiskey Red” Brown said he, Patton, and Brown learned from local guitarist Earl Harris. Other early area musicians included Jake Martin, Jimmy and Otis Harris, Louie Black, Andrew Moore, and Howlin’ Wolf, Patton’s most famous protégé, who performed in Cleveland on the streets and in the Coconut Grove and Harlem Inn. In The Father of the Blues, W. C. Handy wrote that in Cleveland he came to recognize the value of the Delta’s “native music” after seeing a local trio showered with coins around 1905. Later blues and R&B performers from Cleveland included Monroe Jones, the Pearl Street Jumpers, Damon Davis, George Washington, Jr., Little Johnny Christian, Barkin’ Bill Smith, the East Side Jumpers, and Norman Burke, Jr. Leslie and Virdie Hugger opened the Harlem Inn at 718 S. Chrisman in 1935 with no running water and only an outhouse, then expanded it into a popular hotel, nightspot, pool hall, and eatery where musicians, including traveling minstrel show bands, sometimes stayed and performed for room and board. According to Virdie Hugger, performers there also included Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2, Ike Turner, Rufus Thomas, Memphis Slim, Joe and Jimmy Liggins, Fats Domino, and B. B. King and Bobby Bland. Other venues in the “Low End” on Chrisman or at Cross Street and Chrisman included the Hurricane Cafe, Swing Inn Club, Rock & Roll Center, Blue Note Café, Booker T. Theatre, Seals’ Café, Club 36, Club 66, Club Oasis, Happyland Café & Hotel, Roberta Robinson’s Café, and Eva’s Lounge. The Hurricane, operated in the 1950s by Willie and Inez Dixon, later moved farther south on Chrisman and by 2009 remained open as Club Hurricane 2001 under J. W. Foster. Civil rights leader Amzie Moore lived at 614 S. Chrisman and owned Moore’s Lounge on Highway 61, and in later years blues acts also appeared elsewhere in town at the Airport Grocery, The Senator’s Place, and Delta State University. Blind preacher and guitarist Leon Pinson also lived on Chrisman and often played on the street for tips.