About the Foundation
Championing Chickasaw County, Mississippi through synergy, experience, and economics.
Bringing together business, government, and community to move Chickasaw County forward.
Celebrating our heritage while creating new reasons to visit, live, and invest here.
Supporting local business, tourism, workforce, and long-term economic development.
Our mission
The Chickasaw Development Foundation is a member-supported nonprofit that has served the people, businesses, and communities of Chickasaw County, Mississippi for over seventy years. Our work centers on three pillars — synergy, experience, and economics — that together shape a stronger, more welcoming county.
What we do
- Support and promote local businesses, restaurants, and lodging
- Host community events, festivals, and networking gatherings
- Champion workforce development, tourism, and quality of life initiatives
- Partner with city, county, and state leaders on long-term economic development
Get involved
Membership powers our work. Whether you own a business, lead a nonprofit, or simply love this county, there's a place for you at CDF. Explore our member directory, upcoming events, or become a member today.
Houston, Mississippi
Part of the ancient Chickasaw Homeland, the City of Houston was founded in 1837 as the county seat of the nascent Chickasaw County which had been formed a year prior. The land for the city was donated by Judge Joe Pinson who named the city after his childhood friend and hero of Texas, Sam Houston.
Houston, Mississippi is, in fact, the first community to be named after Sam Houston. The City of Houston, with its location on the well-traveled Natchez Trace Parkway, thrived as a trading town over the next few decades until that growth was interrupted by the American Civil War. The war brought widespread ruin and loss to the area, including an incident where Union Troops, for some reason, burned nearly all the county records as workers tried to move them to safe keeping.
The town remained a sleepy Southern town (Roberta Streeter, also known as Bobbie Gentry, was from the area and that feeling of sleepiness may have been included in Ode to Billy Joe) until the furniture boom that happened across the state in the 1970s and 1980s when Houston saw a surprising growth in population and industry. However, the offshoring of much of the furniture industry in the late 1990s saw an end to that growth and Houston reverted to its sleepy small-town status.
Then, in 2012, Houston was designated as the southern gateway to the longest bike trail in Mississippi, the 44-mile Tanglefoot Trail, rails to trails conversion trail that runs from Houston, north to New Albany, Mississippi.
The trail adds to Houston's already impressive list of nearby outdoor activities. There's camping, hiking, horseback riding, hunting, fishing, and miles of off-road ATV trails nearby. Add to that a growing agritourism sector, a convenient location at the halfway point of the Natchez Trace, proximity to the commercial center of Tupelo, and quick travel time to both Ole Miss and Mississippi State, and Houston is a fine base from which to explore the region and get a taste of that real Mississippi that Bobby Gentry sang about.
To contact us with questions, please see the contact page. City of Houston government site www.houston.ms.gov.