Editing Walnut Grove, Mississippi (section)

==History==
Walnut Grove began as a European-American settlement in a nearby location, now referred to as "Old Walnut Grove". This area was developed as cotton plantations in the antebellum era. The town was incorporated in 1884.<ref name="msleake">{{cite web | title = History of Walnut Grove, Leake County, Mississippi | publisher = msleake | date = April 1975 | url = http://msleake.com/wg.txt}}</ref> A post office was established in 1854,<ref name="Howe">{{cite web | last = Howe | first = Tony | title = Walnut Grove, Mississippi | publisher = Mississippi Rails | url = http://www.msrailroads.com/Towns/Walnut_Grove.htm | access-date = February 17, 2014}}</ref> and in the early 1900s, electricity and street lights were installed.<ref name="msleake"/>

The [[Jackson and Eastern Railway]] was completed from [[Union, Mississippi]] to Walnut Grove in 1923, and then extended to nearby [[Tuscola, Mississippi]] in 1925.<ref name="Hoffman">{{cite web | last = Hoffman | first =  Gil | title = Jackson & Eastern Railway | publisher = Mississippi Rails | url = http://www.msrailroads.com/J&E.htm | access-date = February 17, 2014}}</ref>

The town was surveyed at its present location in 1923. Two canals were built near Walnut Grove in the late 1920s to improve transportation. Walnut Grove received a telephone franchise in 1927, and was connected to the Forest exchange. In 1962, a sewage and water system was installed, and in 1966, natural gas was installed. In 1970, the town organized and trained a volunteer fire department, though the first fire truck was not purchased until 1974.<ref name="msleake"/>

Walnut Grove's Town Marshal J.T. "Jake" Trest, was murdered in 1979. His killer, [[Edward Earl Johnson]], was executed in 1987.<ref>{{cite book | last =  O'Shea | first = Kathleen A. | title = Women and the Death Penalty in the United States, 1900–1998 | publisher = Greenwood Publishing | year = 1999 | isbn = 9780275959524 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YvdKyEJo0osC&pg=PP1}}</ref>

In 1981, William Grady Sims, was elected as mayor of Walnut Grove and was repeatedly re-elected, serving until 2012. He was one of the longest-serving mayors in the state. By 2006 the town annexed the property of the [[Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility]], which had been constructed nearby in the county in 2001. It added a large area and population of prisoners to the town. As the facility was privately owned, although operated under contract to the state, it made payments to the city in lieu of taxes. In addition, the operating company appointed Sims as warden of the prison in 2009. The company's payments in lieu of taxes for the prison constituted 15% of the city's budget in 2011.<ref name="profits"/> State expansion of the prison population at this facility made it the largest youth facility in the nation.{{citation needed|date=September 2022}}

In 2009, Sims took a female prisoner to a nearby motel and raped her. He was convicted of charges and sentenced to seven months in confinement.<ref name=Prison/> Numerous investigations of conditions at the prison resulted in a class-action suit filed in 2010 in federal court against its management and the state. The federal government started a separate investigation by the Department of Justice. Sims resigned as warden. In 2011 he was indicted on two federal charges; in February 2012 he resigned as mayor under a federal plea agreement.<ref name="sentence">{{cite web | title = Former Mayor of Walnut Grove Sentenced for Federal Witness Tampering | publisher = Federal Bureau of Investigation | date = April 24, 2012 | url = https://www.fbi.gov/jackson/press-releases/2012/former-mayor-of-walnut-grove-sentenced-for-federal-witness-tampering}}</ref>

In October 2011, he was ordered by the state auditor to pay "$31,530 for using city employees and equipment to work on private prisons in the area, including the one he ran."<ref name="CBS">[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/longtime-mayor-of-miss-town-william-grady-sims-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-an-inmate/ "Longtime mayor of Miss. town, William Grady Sims, accused of sexually assaulting an inmate"], CBSnews.com, October 26, 2011; accessed January 30, 2016.</ref>