One of DeSoto County’s most famous residents may soon get a historical marker on the courthouse square this Spring.
The Board of Supervisors received a request from DeSoto County Tourism officials asking for their support and help in placing a marker to recognize the local roots of best-selling author John Grisham.
Grisham, the author of more than 30 legal thrillers which have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, once practiced law inside the old county courthouse and wrote his first novel “A Time to Kill” in his spare time during breaks between cases and debates in the Mississippi legislature where he represented DeSoto County.
Kim Terrell, executive director of DeSoto County Convention and Visitors Bureau Tourism Association, said the marker to Grisham will be the county’s first Literary Trail marker.
“Mississippi has the Blues Trail markers, of which we have five. We have the Country Music Trail markers, of which we have one. And we have the Freedom Trail Markers of which we have one here for James Meredith,” Terrell said. “So this will be our first Writers Trail marker.”
Novelist Richard Ford was honored with a Writers Trail marker in Clarksdale in September.
Ford resided in Clarksdale in the early 1980s when he wrote his book, The Sportswriter, which came out in 1986 and won him international acclaim as the book was named one of Time magazine’s top 100 novels published since the magazine’s inception.
