December 2016 | Business View Magazine

80 81 We do consider ourself quite a jewel. Oxford is a charming southern community with a rich history. William Faulkner is from here, John Grisham is from here. We have the University of Mississippi – Ole Miss. We have developed a quality of life here that is just about the best anywhere.” Scott McInnes President and CEO of the Oxford-Lafayette County Economic Development Foundation O Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County,Mississippi, in the northern part of the state. It was incorporated in 1837on land that had been previously settled by the Chickasaw Indian Nation.A resident,T.D. Isom recommended naming the city after Oxford, England, in hopes that it would one day become a university town.And, in fact,within a fewyears, the Mississippi legislature voted to make the city the home of the state’s first public university. In 1848, the Univer- sity of Mississippi opened its doors to 80 students.Today, it has become one of the nation’s finest educational institutions. Oxford was nearly devastated in 1864,when Union troops set fire to the town, burning the Courthouse,most of the Town Square, and many homes. Indeed, the Civil War claimed the lives of many Oxford residents and university students, alike.Almost one hundred years later, in 1962, Oxford again found itself in the middle of turmoil when James Meredith entered the University of Mississippi as its first African-American student. Over the last several decades, though,Oxford has become more well-known as an economically- thriving and culturally-rich city of the New South.“We do consider ourself quite a jewel,” says Jon Maynard, President and CEO of the Oxford-Lafayette County Economic Development Foundation (EDF).“Oxford is a charming southern community with a rich history.William Faulkner is from here, John Grisham is from here.We have the University of Mississippi–Ole Miss.We have developed a quality of life here that is just about the best anywhere.” In other words,Oxford always had the culture.What it didn’t have back in 1992,when the EDF, OxFOrd, miSSiSSippi Oxford, Mississippi Quite a jewel