Tupelo

City and administrative headquarters of Lee County, northeastern Mississippi, 76 km/47 mi southeast of Oxford; population (1990) 30,700. It is the shipping and processing centre for a cotton growing and dairying region. The city is widely known as the birthplace of the rock-and-roll legend Elvis Presley. The Tupelo National Battlefield, to the northwest, commemorates a Civil War battle fought here in 1864.

In 1859 the original settlement of Harrisburg was moved two miles east to the Mobile and Ohio railway line; the new community, Gum Pond, was renamed Tupelo after the local tupelo (black gum) trees that supplied timber.

Civil War battle A Union force led by A J Smith arrived here on 14 July 1864, aiming to prevent the Confederate forces of Stephen D Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest from harassing W T Sherman's march on Atlanta. Victorious in a bloody two-day battle, the Northerners were forced to retreat two days later because of low supplies.