Z 0353.000 Brown (Robert L.) Papers

Z 0353.000
BROWN (ROBERT L.) PAPERS

An Alabama native, Robert L. (Bob) Brown was about twenty-seven years of age when he moved to Belzoni, Humphreys County, Mississippi, with his wife, Ruby, and baby daughter, Robie L., in 1914. Their second daughter, Rubie L., was born four years later. Brown was the editor of a weekly newspaper in Belzoni. In 1916, he bought a weekly newspaper in Sumner, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, and became its editor. By 1920, he was co-owner with C. G. Brown of both the Sumner Sentinel and the Quitman County Leader, a weekly newspaper in Marks, Mississippi. Brown became the campaign manager for Dennis Murphrees successful bid for lieutenant governor of Mississippi in 1923. He became secretary of the Mississippi Senate in 1926, a post he held for twenty-four years. Brown became assistant secretary of the state senate in 1950, with Halla Mae Turner replacing him as secretary. He retired from that position in 1960, although he maintained an active interest in legislative affairs.

Brown held other state government and private offices in addition to his position with the state senate. He was secretary of the Mississippi Building Commission and secretary of the Mississippi State Hospital Removal, Improvement, and Land Sale Commission in the 1920s. The latter commission was established to build a new state mental hospital at Whitfield, Rankin County, about ten miles east of Jackson. He also served as the secretary of the Mississippi Press Association. In the 1940s and 1950s, he was editor and manager of Mississippi Transports, the magazine of the Mississippi Transport Association, Inc. (later, Mississippi Trucking Association).

After his retirement from state government, Brown continued to reside in Jackson until the mid-1960s.

This collection consists of correspondence and papers regarding the construction of the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitfield, as well as miscellaneous papers of Robert L. Brown. The construction-related papers contain correspondence with different contractors and state administrators, blank letterhead stationery, drafts of contracts and arbitration agreements for the state hospital commission, minutes of state hospital commission meetings, and a statement by the state auditor. The miscellaneous papers include private lease agreements, blank forms, a draft of a legislative bill, completed corporate tax forms, state building commission correspondence and blank letterhead stationery, and personal correspondence. One of the personal letters concerns Browns Aetna insurance policy; another personal letter is from an inmate at Parchman State Penitentiary to Brown.

1. Mississippi State Hospital (Whitfield) Papers. 1928-1930; n.d. 1 folder.