Hiram Bradford Bust

Hiram Bradford was one of Brownsville's most influential merchants during the mid eighteen hundreds. Bradford bought one of the first lots on the southeast section of the town square where he built a storeroom and a house. There was a large oak tree on this lot, which Bradford cut down and hand sawed into slabs with which he built his twelve by fourteen foot store. His establishment soon became the only store where a yard of tape or paper of pins could be found between Jackson and Memphis. Bradford, an enterprising man, next established Bradford's Landing on the Hatchie River ten miles south of Brownsville's landing and erected a saw mill.  He also built the first wood frame hotel that remained until 1868 when the Exchange Hotel was constructed in its place. Hiram Bradford built the first cotton gin in the county.