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Mississippi County
Sharkey County, Mississippi
Rolling Fork and Muddy Waters birthplace - from Rolling Fork's distinction as the birthplace of Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield, known as Muddy Waters, was born in Rolling Fork in 1913 and became one of the most influential musicians in American history, helping define Chicago blues and shaping rock and roll - the city celebrates his legacy and the Muddy Waters Museum honors his Delta roots) to Sharkey County's classic Delta landscape (the county's flat, fertile Delta terrain of cotton fields, oxbow lakes, and bayous along the Sunflower River represents the heart of the Mississippi Delta that produced American blues music).
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Office: Sharkey County Emergency Management Agency – Rolling Fork, MS 39159 | (662) 873-1685 | Email: [email protected].
Sheriff: Sharkey County Sheriff’s Office – 120 Locust St, Rolling Fork, MS 39159 | (662) 873-1500 | Fax: (662) 873-6135 | Email: [email protected]; Sheriff Herbert Ceaser.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911. Sharkey County has significant, recent lived experience with catastrophic weather: an F5 tornado struck the area on February 21, 1971, and on March 24, 2023, a devastating high-end EF4 tornado with winds just shy of 200 mph tore a nearly mile-wide path through Rolling Fork, destroying roughly 300 homes and much of the town, and killing 13-15 people in the county (21+ statewide). Residents should sign up for county emergency alerts and be aware of the area’s documented tornado risk.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: US-61 and MS-14 serve Rolling Fork, the county seat, in the Mississippi Delta along Deer Creek, near the county’s eastern border formed by the Yazoo River.
Notes: Sharkey County was founded in 1876, named for William L. Sharkey, provisional Governor of Mississippi in 1865. Roughly 3,100-3,800 residents across 432-435 square miles – the second-least populous county in Mississippi after neighboring Issaquena County. Rolling Fork was settled in 1828 by Thomas Y. Chaney, its first European-American resident, on Choctaw land recently opened by treaty and settler pressure; Chaney named the town for the swift water at a fork in Deer Creek.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Sharkey County Courthouse – Rolling Fork, MS 39159.
Notes: Rolling Fork is genuinely, nationally significant as the birthplace of blues legend Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), and is also associated with the famous 1902 hunting trip where President Theodore Roosevelt’s refusal to shoot a restrained bear – guided by African American hunter and former slave Holt Collier – inspired the “teddy bear.” Both the town’s Mississippi Blues Trail marker honoring Muddy Waters and its interpretive sculptures depicting Roosevelt and Collier were severely damaged or destroyed in the March 2023 tornado; a commemorative guitar sculpture honoring Waters was blown from its casing outside the courthouse and later recovered. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided emergency funding to help replace this cultural heritage material. Rolling Fork also contains several National Register of Historic Places-listed archaeological sites, including the Rolling Fork Mounds.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Sharkey County Veterans Service Office – confirm current contact via sharkeycounty.net.
Federal: VA facilities accessible via a Vicksburg, MS or Greenville, MS VA clinic; confirm current routing.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Confirm current Rolling Fork public library address/phone via sharkeycounty.net.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: The Muddy Waters Blues Trail marker site, the Rolling Fork Mounds, and downtown Rolling Fork’s ongoing post-tornado rebuilding are the county’s most historically and currently significant sites.
Notes: Both Muddy Waters’s birthplace legacy and the town’s ongoing recovery from the devastating 2023 tornado are covered factually and with care here.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Sharkey County Tax Assessor – confirm current contact via sharkeycounty.net.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
South Delta Animal Rescue – Rolling Fork, MS; a 501(c)(3) organization working to reduce the stray animal population in Sharkey and Issaquena Counties.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Sharkey County – confirm current contact via sharkeycounty.net.
NOTES: Sharkey County is the seventh and final county in the ninth batch of the Mississippi v2 A+ sourced redo. Both Muddy Waters’s birthplace legacy and Rolling Fork’s ongoing recovery from the devastating March 2023 EF4 tornado are covered factually and with care here – the county’s tornado history is directly relevant to residents’ emergency preparedness. All contact information above was sourced via web search as of early August 2026 and should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit, deadline-sensitive filing, or emergency-adjacent decision.
About Sharkey County
Sharkey County is the Mississippi Delta’s Muddy Waters heritage county – Rolling Fork’s claim as the birthplace of one of America’s most influential musicians gives this small, sparsely populated Delta county a profound cultural legacy while the surrounding cotton and soybean fields maintain the agricultural character of the deep Delta landscape that shaped the blues.
Rolling Fork (the county seat, population ~2,000) is Sharkey County’s governmental and cultural hub, a small Delta town whose blues heritage draws music history enthusiasts to one of Mississippi’s least populous counties.
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Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Sharkey County Assessor at 100 S. China Street, Rolling Fork, MS 39159, phone 662-873-2755. MS assessed at percentage of true value by property class.
Courts & Legal
Sharkey County Circuit Court at 100 S. China Street, Rolling Fork, MS 39159, phone 662-873-2755, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
CHANCERY CLERK
400 S. China St., Rolling Fork, MS 39159
(662) 873-2755
CIRCUIT CLERK
400 S. China St., Rolling Fork, MS 39159
(662) 873-2755
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Sharkey County Chancery Court (probate case files – see Probate section above).
Local societies
No dedicated Sharkey County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Sharkey County Chancery Court P.O. Box 218, Rolling Fork, MS 39159 (662) 873-2755 Sharkey County is in the Mississippi Delta, seated in Rolling Fork.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Mississippi has not adopted the Uniform Probate Code and instead follows its own statutory framework under Miss. Code Ann. Title 91, Chapter 7. Mississippi’s small-estate threshold, at $75,000, is one of the lowest in the country, so most estates end up needing at least some court involvement.
Small Estate Affidavit (Miss. Code Ann. § 91-7-322) – personal property only, up to $75,000 (excluding liens and encumbrances). A 30-day waiting period after death applies. The affidavit is presented directly to whoever holds the property (a bank, for instance); that party is not required to investigate the truth of the affidavit and is protected from liability once it complies.
Muniment of Title (Miss. Code Ann. § 91-5-35) – a limited proceeding to transfer real property named in a will, without full administration, when the estate’s non-real-estate assets are $75,000 or less and all debts (including taxes) have been paid. A petition is still filed with the Chancery Court to declare the will valid; the will and court order are then recorded in the land records.
Formal Administration – required for most estates with real property beyond the muniment-of-title threshold or significant liquid assets. The Chancery Judge reviews the petition, the will (if any), and supporting documents before issuing Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration appointing the personal representative.
Step 2: filing for probate
File a petition with the Chancery Court in the county where the decedent was domiciled.
The personal representative inventories assets and notifies creditors; Mississippi’s creditor claim period runs 90 days (Miss. Code Ann. § 91-7-145).
Claims and disputes are adjudicated by the Chancery Court if contested.
Once debts are settled and the creditor period closes, the estate can be distributed and closed.
What it costs
Costs are the Chancery Clerk’s per-county filing fee (built on the statewide base under Miss. Code § 25-7-9), plus recording fees and publication costs.
Mississippi has no state estate tax or inheritance tax. Only the federal estate tax could separately apply, and only to very large estates.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
400 S. China St., Rolling Fork, MS 39159
(662) 873-2361
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
ELECTIONS
400 S. China St., Rolling Fork, MS 39159
(662) 873-2755
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Office: Sharkey County Health Department (Mississippi State Department of Health) – confirm current phone via sharkeycounty.net. Life Help Mobile Crisis Response Team – 317 West Race Street, Rolling Fork, MS | (662) 873-6228 (24/7) | Crisis line 1-866-453-6216.
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Rolling Fork
Population: 4,500
Area: 436 sq mi
Established: 1876
Tier: 4
Public Records
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