WE HAVE HAD A BREAK THROUGH!!!  I can’t believe it, we have finally found out a way to get to Orvisburg.  Joe and I both finally got into the PRCC Museum and found a man that practically knew everything about Orvisburg!  He said that he had tons of family that lived and were buried out there.  It turns out that he even had family that worked out in Nortac, which was the lumber company that used to be in my backyard.  He led us to a man that knew how to get back in to Orvisburg and funny enough Tina Knoll owns almost all of Orvisburg.  I got to church with Miss Tina and know them fairly well so all I have to do is go to church this weekend and ask!  YIPPIE!  I am so happy.  On Sunday I will have a new update.

Ya’ll have a good spring break!

Here we go again…another day has come and is about to go and we have gotten just a little bit closer to solving the Orvisburg Mystery.  So we started off by asking Bud Lambert if he wanted to join our search.  Well we begged and begged….And he still said No!  What a little baby…fine I get it if people think we are crazy…but hey when Joe and I are on one of the History Channels most popular shows….you’ll be sorry!!!

Yesterday we I had a meeting with the principle our school, “Carl Merritt”, because there was a rumor that Orvisburg was on 16^th section land and owned by the school.  That would make things so much easier since we are doing the whole “Search for Orvisburg” thing as a journalism project.  Well we called a bunch of people and I got a whole bunch of info on the place.  We never found out if the school owned Orvisburg, so today I made a trip up to the PLE to look at a 16^th section map.  Needless to say, the school doesn’t own it!  Dang…

Our superintendent, Gylde Fitzpatrick told us that we might have some luck figuring out who owned the land and more information on Orvisburg at PRCC because they had a small museum of Poplarville history…and guess what…THEY WERE CLOSED!  So we will continue our fearless journey tomorrow during journalism…until then…

Okay we have made some progress so far.  Joe and I made a bunch of trips all over Poplarville to found out exactly what happened to and where is Orvisburg.  First we went to the Tax office and got a whole bunch of names of the people who owned property in the general area.  This was great news for us, because both Joe and I know people who know these people.  Then we went to the library, which was no help at all.  All they had on Orvisburg was a book that was all the way in Picayune…yay….  But the woman at the front desk was really helpful and told us how the court house may have something information on deeds of the old town.

So we drove a long, long way, which calculated to about 1/20 of a mile.  The journey was rough on the bumpy road to the court house.  We went in and found a woman who said that her great aunt had owned a grocery store in Orvisburg…well that was good to know, because now we know for sure that there was actually a town back there.  The deeds weren’t as helpful however….

So here we go…we got a little information, but not enough to really help us…It is just so strange that a thriving town with houses, stores, and graveyards would just totally root away.  Why did people leave?  Was it the small pox?  Did the lumber company buy it out?  Is it legal to have a cemetery on private property and not let the public come in?  Why is there no information anywhere about a town where people once lived and died?  It is a really sad story to think about, but hopefully the next time I update on the story we will have more info, and we would have figured out the Orvisburg Mystery.