The Gold Coast: Cross the River

This area of Rankin County, formerly called East Jackson and later the Gold Coast, was a center of gambling, bootleg liquor, and live music for several decades through the 1960s. A strip of clubs along Fannin Road, known to African Americans as “’cross the river,” hosted blues, jazz, and soul performers including touring national acts and locally based artists such as Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller), Sam Myers, Cadillac George Harris, and Sam Baker, Jr. Although Mississippi law prohibited liquor sales from 1908 to 1966, bootleggers by the 1930s operated openly there, and the area’s name likely reflected both its proximity to the Pearl River and the large sums made from bootlegging, gambling, and other vices. The Gold Coast became notorious for boisterous nightlife, frequent murders, and official corruption, yet customers continued coming from stricter Jackson, while periodic Mississippi National Guard interventions had only temporary effect and local sheriffs’ choices largely shaped daily operations. Among the most notorious bootleggers were G. W. “Big Red” Hydrick and Sam Seaney, a club owner killed in a 1946 shootout that also killed Rankin County constable Norris Overby. Blues activity centered on Fannin Road, where dozens of venues, from elaborate clubs to informal juke joints, were frequented and mostly owned by African Americans, and many businesses remained open twenty hours a day, seven days a week. By the 1940s many national blues and jazz acts played at the Blue Flame/Play House complex run by Joe Catchings and at the Rankin Auditorium behind the Stamps Brothers Hotel, operated by Charlie, Clift, and Bill Stamps; the Auditorium advertised a dance floor for three thousand people, and reports noted balcony seating for white patrons. By the mid-1950s clubs such as the Blue Flame, Rocket Lounge, Heat Wave, Last Chance, and Gay Lady featured mostly local artists. In 1966, when Mississippi ended prohibition and let counties choose whether to remain dry or become wet, Rankin County stayed dry while neighboring Hinds County became wet, removing the Gold Coast’s reason for being and bringing its club scene and bootlegging operations to an abrupt end.

Flowood, Mississippi · United States