Entries - County: Monroe - Starting with G

On July 30, 1896, an African American man named Godfrey Gould was lynched by a mob of more than 100 people in Brinkley (Monroe County) for having allegedly attempted to rape a woman. One early report of Gould’s alleged crime can be found in the July 22, 1896, issue of the Helena Weekly World, which reported that, on Monday, July 13, Gould “attempted to assault one of the gay damsels of his color, when she forcibly and effectively resisted by sending a ball [bullet] through his left cheek, passing out of his right eye.” He was soon arrested by Deputy Sheriffs Sell Johnson and J. A. Rogers, assisted by Deputy Sheriff W. B. Daizell, who “were mindful of his comfort” …

The Great Southern Hotel, also known as the Rusher Hotel or Hotel Rusher, is a historic hotel building at 127 West Cedar Street near the town square in Brinkley (Monroe County), about seventy miles west of Memphis, Tennessee. Brinkley was an important railroad town in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The three-story brick building was constructed in 1915 to serve as Brinkley’s Union Station. Its main entrance originally faced the railway tracks but was reoriented to a street façade after the decline of the railroad. The Great Southern Hotel building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 18, 1986. The building is part of Brinkley’s Lick Skillet Railroad Work Station Historic District, which itself …