Durant (Miss.)

Durant is a city near the central eastern border of Holmes County, Mississippi, United States, and Big Black River. The town was founded in 1858 as a station on the Mississippi Central Railroad, later part of the Illinois Central. Durant was named for Louis Durant, a Choctaw chief who had lived on this site before the United States undertook Indian Removal in the 1830s, forcing him and most of the Choctaw to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, Durant had a population of 2,231. About 3 miles away is the Castalian Springs Hotel, believed in 2020 to be the only surviving such spa structure in the state. A dozen mineral springs resorts were identified in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Guide to Mississippi (1938), written during the Great Depression. Such springs were believed to have healing properties.