JACKSON, Miss.—John Evans didn’t know his bookstore, Lemuria Books, was about to become part of history when he walked into its 50th anniversary event on Saturday, April 11.
While Lemuria’s employees learned the Jackson, Mississippi, store was set to be added to the Mississippi Writers Trail in January, they kept the news under lock-and-key for months to surprise Evans at the event.
“I didn’t know until when they walked out today,” Evans told the Mississippi Free Press. “I was surprised.”
Lemuria Event Director Hillary Taylor and other Lemuria staff members worked together with Mississippi Book Festival, Cathead Distillery (which hosted the event) and Frascogna Law Group to arrange the celebration.
“It was hard to set up, but it was fun,” Taylor said. “… We all came from these different entities and we’re able to work together on something that we all love and care about, which is the bookstore.”
Evans knew about the anniversary party, but not the Mississippi Writers Trail addition. It included performances from 10 different musical groups, an author cocktail hour, food trucks, Lemuria 50th anniversary merchandise, coloring supplies for kids and Cathead’s bar services—not to mention the unveiling of Lemuria’s plaque for the Mississippi Writers Trail.
“When I started working here, (I came) to the realization of how big a part of the community Lemuria is,” Taylor, an 11-year Lemuria employee, said.
“Meeting all of these people in the community that all knew about Lemuria and love Lemuria was the coolest thing ever, so the marker showing how much this bookstore means to the community for the last 50 years … It’s amazing. It should have happened before now.”
Lemuria is the first and only bookstore in the state with a marker on the Mississippi Writers Trail, and one of the oldest independent book sellers in Mississippi.
It is second only to Marshall’s Music and Book Store in Jackson’s Farish Street Historic District, founded in 1938, but Lemuria, founded in 1975, has still been around for some employees’ entire lives.
“I would go and shop at the bookstore as a child with my grandparents, and I just always loved to go visit with my friends during high school and college,” Lemuria Bookseller and Social Media Manager Sarah Gregg told the Mississippi Free Press on April 11. “It (was) kind of my dream job.”
There are two other Mississippi Writers Trail sites in Jackson: the Eudora Welty House and Garden at 1119 Pinehurst St. and the Margaret Walker Center in Ayer Hall at Jackson State University.
Welty’s house was the first site recognized on the Mississippi Writers Trail in September 2018. The Margaret Walker Center was added to the trail the following summer.
Taylor and other employees expect that the Mississippi Writers Trail marker will bring more potential patrons into Lemuria.
“A lot of times, people come into Banner Hall and they say ‘Oh yeah, I go to Broad Street all the time, but I did not know that there was a bookstore upstairs,’” Taylor said. “I think we tried to spend this time showing outwardly that we’ve had a bookstore for 50 years and it’s just right here in Banner Hall on the second floor.”
Other stops on the Mississippi Writers Trail include markers honoring Willie Morris in Yazoo City; Mary Garrard, Julia Reed and Shelby Foote in Greenville; Dorothy Shawhan in Cleveland; Endesha Ida Mae Holland in Greenwood; Elizabeth Spencer in Carrollton; Richard Ford in Clarksdale; William Faulkner in Oxford; Ida B. Wells in Holly Springs; Richard Wright in Natchez; Anne Moody in Centreville; and Natasha Trethewey in Gulfport.
More Mississippi Writers Trail markers are awaiting unveiling, Visit Mississippi told the Mississippi Free Press.
