Oxford, College town in Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States
Oxford is a town in northern Mississippi built around a square with the county courthouse at its center. Brick buildings surround this central space, where shops, restaurants, and institutions connected to the nearby university shape daily activity.
Three settlers founded the place in 1837 on land purchased from a Chickasaw woman named Hoka, intending to create a center for learning. The settlement later grew around the university while the courthouse became the central point of public life.
The name comes from the English university town and was meant to reflect the academic purpose of the settlement. Today you see students walking through the square with books while locals chat outside storefronts and sit at outdoor tables near cafés.
The campus extends west of the center and is reachable on foot in a few minutes, while the historic area around the square can be explored in a morning. Many sections are flat and easy to navigate with parking available on several streets near the center.
William Faulkner lived from 1930 until his death in 1962 in a house called Rowan Oak built in the 1840s on the edge of town. Today visitors can see his study and the grounds where he wrote and revised many of his novels.
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