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Mississippi County
Yazoo County, Mississippi
Yazoo City's Witch of Yazoo and Willie Morris's hometown - from the Witch of Yazoo legend (the local legend of a witch buried in Yazoo City's Glenwood Cemetery - whose grave chain is said to have been broken when the witch fulfilled her deathbed promise to burn Yazoo City - supposedly fulfilled when the Great Fire of 1904 burned much of the city - the story was popularized by Willie Morris and remains one of Mississippi's most beloved local legends) to Willie Morris's Yazoo City (the writer who became the youngest editor of Harper's Magazine - his memoir North Toward Home is one of the most celebrated accounts of growing up in the American South - was born in Yazoo City, and the town's character permeates his writing).
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Office: Yazoo County Emergency Management – 2201 Gordon Ave, Yazoo City, MS 39194 | (662) 746-1569 | Email: [email protected]; Hours: Mon-Fri 8 AM-5 PM. Text “yazoo” to 77295 for emergency notifications.
Sheriff: Yazoo County Sheriff’s Office – 209 E. Broadway St, PO Box 108, Yazoo City, MS 39194 | (662) 746-5611 | Fax: (662) 746-3890; Sheriff Jeremy “Bull” McCoy.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: US-49 and MS-16 serve Yazoo City, the county seat, on the Yazoo River, roughly 35-36 miles north of Jackson, the state capital.
Notes: Yazoo County is located along the western edge of the Mississippi Delta, bordered by the Yazoo River.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Yazoo County Courthouse – Yazoo City, MS 39194.
Notes: Yazoo City is genuinely, warmly the childhood home of acclaimed author and longtime Harper’s Magazine editor Willie Morris, raised there from infancy through high school valedictorian, later a Rhodes Scholar. Morris’s most beloved works – including “North Toward Home,” “Good Old Boy,” and especially “My Dog Skip” (later adapted into a film) – draw deeply on his Yazoo City upbringing; he is buried in the town’s historic Glenwood Cemetery, famously just thirteen paces from the grave of the legendary “Witch of Yazoo,” a local folklore figure he immortalized in “Good Old Boy.” Separately, and directly relevant to InmateAid’s mission: the Federal Correctional Complex, Yazoo City (FCC Yazoo City), opened in 2005 in unincorporated Yazoo County, is a major U.S. Bureau of Prisons complex housing high-, medium-, and minimum-security facilities for male offenders, located about 36 miles north of Jackson.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Yazoo County Veterans Service Office – confirm current contact via yazoocounty.net.
Federal: VA facilities accessible via a Jackson, MS VA medical center; confirm current routing.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Confirm current Yazoo City public library address/phone via yazoocounty.net.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Glenwood Cemetery (Willie Morris’s and the Witch of Yazoo’s graves), Panther Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, and Wolfolk State Park are the county’s premier attractions.
Notes: The genuine, beloved Willie Morris literary legacy – and its tie to the Federal Correctional Complex, Yazoo City, directly relevant to InmateAid’s mission – make this a fitting close to the Mississippi project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Yazoo County Tax Assessor – confirm current contact via yazoocounty.net.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Yazoo City Animal Shelter / Animal Control – 460 West Bridge Street, Yazoo City, MS 39194 | (662) 746-5121 / (662) 590-2725; Animal Control Officer David Rogers; Hours: Mon/Wed/Fri 8 AM-5 PM, Tue/Thu 9 AM-6 PM.
Yazoo County Humane Society – a volunteer-driven community organization serving stray and neglected animals countywide, active in local adoption events.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Yazoo County – confirm current contact via yazoocounty.net.
NOTES: Yazoo County is the twelfth and final county in the eleventh and final batch of the Mississippi v2 A+ sourced redo – completing all 82 Mississippi counties. The genuine, beloved Willie Morris literary legacy and the Federal Correctional Complex, Yazoo City’s direct relevance to InmateAid’s mission make this a fitting close to the Mississippi project. 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 Yazoo County
Yazoo County is central Mississippi’s Witch of Yazoo and Willie Morris county – the beloved local legend of the witch whose broken grave chain foretold the 1904 fire and the writer who made Yazoo City’s character famous in American memoir define a community at the Delta’s edge.
Yazoo City (the county seat, population ~10,000) sits at the transition between the flat Delta and the rolling loess bluffs – the geographic and cultural boundary that shaped Willie Morris’s literary imagination.
All Services
Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Yazoo County Tax Assessor at 211 E. Broadway Street, Yazoo City, MS 39194, phone 662-746-2642. MS residential assessed at 10% of true value.
Courts & Legal
Yazoo County Chancery Court at 211 E. Broadway Street, Yazoo City, MS 39194, phone 662-746-1191, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
CHANCERY CLERK
200 E. Broadway, Yazoo City, MS 39194
(662) 746-2661
CIRCUIT CLERK
200 E. Broadway, Yazoo City, MS 39194
(662) 746-2661
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Yazoo County Chancery Court (probate case files – see Probate section above).
Ricks Memorial Library in Yazoo City is a notable local historical landmark.
Local societies
No dedicated Yazoo 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
Yazoo County Chancery Court 209 E. Broadway Street (mail: P.O. Box 68), Yazoo City, MS 39194 (662) 746-2661
Yazoo County was founded January 21, 1823, named for the Yazoo River, in west-central Mississippi, seated in Yazoo City.
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
200 E. Broadway, Yazoo City, MS 39194
(662) 746-4291
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
ELECTIONS
200 E. Broadway, Yazoo City, MS 39194
(662) 746-2661
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
MS Dept of Health — Central Region
(662) 746-2251
King's Daughters Hospital — Yazoo City
(662) 746-2261
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Yazoo County Health Department (Mississippi State Department of Health) – confirm current phone via yazoocounty.net.
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