After an overnight stop in Hattiesburg, we headed toward Vicksburg on Sunday.  Along the way, we ventured off US-49 to search for some letterboxes in the tiny town of Mize, Mississipi (pop. 285).  Mize archly proclaims itself the "Watermelon Capitol of the World" and hosts the annual Mississippi Watermelon Festival, a fundraiser for the local volunteer fire department.
     
Though economic opportunities in this area were few in the early part of the last century, farmers carved out a niche for themselves in the 1920s and 1930s by cultivating particularly sweet watermelons known as Cuban Queen.  Since those early days, the cultivars have evolved into what is now widely recognized and prized in Mississippi as the Smith County watermelon.
     
Other parts of Mize's story aren't quite so savory.  About five miles south of the town lies a seemingly peaceful valley known as Sullivan's Hollow, a name with a notorious reputation in Mississippi history.  The hollow was settled by an Irishman named Thomas Sullivan.  In 1807, Sullivan packed up his family and all their belongings on a shaky wagon, left South Carolina and migrated to this part of the Mississippi Territory.
    
After staking their claim in the wilderness, the Sullivans began to populate the valley, with their eleven children.  During the same period "Pappy Tom" fathered 11 additional children with his common law wife.  Other relatives from Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina heard about the valley and moved there.  As the Sullivans' numbers increased, disagreements sparked and tempers flared.  Soon the hollow and its residents were widely known for their drunkenness, mistrust of outsiders and general lawlessness.
     

Wild Bill Sullivan

A particularly fearsome grandson of "Pappy Tom" earned the moniker Wild Bill Sullivan.  Perhaps the most notorious member of this boisterous clan, he was known as the self-appointed King of Sullivan's Hollow.  Wild Bill was accused of killing 50 or more men but was indicted only for the murder of his own brother, a crime he successfully appealed.  Because of his well-known antipathy to strangers, outsiders were afraid of entering the hollow, especially after dark.  Like many of his brethren, Wild Bill drank heavily, brawled regularly and bounced in and out of trouble with the law.