Editing Artesia, Mississippi (section)

==History==
Artesia was originally ''Artesia Junction'', a junction point on the [[Mobile and Ohio Railroad]]. During the railroad's construction in the 1850s, an offer was made to the towns of [[Columbus, Mississippi|Columbus]] and [[Aberdeen, Mississippi|Aberdeen]] to route the railroad through the towns, but both towns refused. Columbus reconsidered a few months later; but by that time, the railway had already chosen a route well to the west of the town. However, the railroad did extend a spur line in order to serve Columbus, and that spur line joins the main line at the site of present-day Artesia.

Artesia was the site of a voter suppression incident in 1876 in which a group of heavily armed white men from Starkville came to intimidate black voters in the Republican Club.<ref>{{cite web|title=Full text of "Mississippi: Testimony as to denial of elective franchise in Mississippi at the elections of 1875 and 1876, taken under the resolution of the Senate of December 5, 1876"|url=https://archive.org/stream/mississippitesti00unit/mississippitesti00unit_djvu.txt|access-date=December 17, 2017|date=December 5, 1876}}</ref> Federal troops were called to intervene, which enraged many whites, who depicted the event as a negro riot.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Artesia Affair|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016926/1876-11-08/ed-1/seq-2/|access-date=December 17, 2017|publisher=The Weekly Clarion|date=November 8, 1876}}</ref>

The name originates from a cluster of [[artesian well]]s that were found in the area.