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History
in a Pecan Shell
It is told that a local sawmill and landowner
here named Perry is the community’s namesake. There was an earlier community named
either Wallington or Wallingville, but Perry’s success with his
sawmill overtook that community and it became a part of Perryville.
Perryville
was near Jefferson Road – the county’s first public road, constructed in the early
1850s. In 1856 the community got its first store and four years later a post office
opened – spelled Parryville. It closed the following year and reopened
after the Civil War in 1867. This one only lasted until 1869.
In the mid
1890s, the town’s second post office (with the current spelling of the name) opened
but that one lasted only until 1906.
Perryville at one time had as many
as five cotton gins. By 1900, Perryville was only 2 people away from having 100
citizens. No reports are available for the prosperous 1920s or the depressed 30s,
but after WWII, Perryville
reported a population of just 40.
By 1960, Perryville had no businesses
to report and many of the community’s houses were abandoned. It retained two churches
and the cemetery remained open.
The population was frozen at 52 from the
early 1970s through the 2000 census. In the 1980s, the local Baptist Church, received
a historical marker. |
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