W.C. Handy, known as the Father of the Blues, immortalized the crossing of the Southern Railway and the Yazoo Delta Railroad, known as the Yellow Dog, at Moorhead in his 1914 song “Yellow Dog Rag,” later better known as “Yellow Dog Blues.” Handy wrote that he first heard the line “Goin' where the Southern cross the Dog” sung by a guitarist at the Tutwiler train station around 1903. Moorhead became a hub of both rail transportation and blues activity in local juke joints. In the late 1890s it was a thriving frontier town built on the lumber trade and an important stop on the Southern Railway in Mississippi. The Yazoo Delta Railway was incorporated in 1895 by Chester Pond of the Moorhead Improvement Company, who had earlier owned a narrow gauge railway that moved logs and lumber to and from his mill. The Y.D. opened in August 1897 with 20.5 miles of track running north from Moorhead to Ruleville, and in 1900 it was incorporated into the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad, a subsidiary of the Illinois Central Railroad, then extended from Ruleville to Tutwiler and south to Belzoni. The origin of the nickname Yellow Dog is debated, most commonly linked to yellow-painted rolling stock bearing the initials Y.D., though other explanations include an actual yellow dog, the political term “yellow dog Democrat,” non-union labor, and railroad slang for a short line; another Delta branch of the Y&MV was called the Black Dog. Although the Yazoo Delta existed only briefly, the name Yellow Dog continued to be applied to the Y&MV and became an iconic symbol of the Delta and railroad lore. Train rhythms became stylistic foundations for blues and jazz, and in early blues lyrics trains appeared both as literal subjects and as metaphors for escape and long distance, as shown not only in Handy’s “Yellow Dog Blues” but also in songs by Big Bill Broonzy, Charley Patton, Lucille Bogan, and Sam Collins. The railway crossroads in Moorhead also encouraged the growth of restaurants and hotels. At its peak, eight passenger trains a day passed through Moorhead; white passengers could ride luxurious Pullman cars to Memphis on the Y&MV, while African Americans rode in separate cars. Moorhead became a bustling town, especially on Saturday nights, when, as local resident Jim Harrison recalled, crowds came to celebrate the end of a hard week of manual labor, shopping and socializing until the streets and sidewalks were so packed that people could hardly walk. Howlin’ Wolf and Robert Johnson reportedly played together in Moorhead in the 1930s, and bluesman Booker Miller recalled hearing Willie Brown there. Musicians who lived in the Moorhead area included Charley Booker, Eli Green, James “Boo Boo” Davis, Willie Hudson, Chris Ivy, Jimmy Hicks, and Brother O’Neal.
