Mitchell County

Basic Information

Type of Place

County

Metro Area

Politics c. 1860?

Unions, Organized Labor?

Sundown Town Status

Sundown Town in the Past?

Probable

Was there an ordinance?

Don't Know

Sign?

Don’t Know

Year of Greatest Interest

Still Sundown?

Don’t Know

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present

	Total	White	Black	Asian	Native	Hispanic	Other	BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890	12,807		553
1900	15,221		536
1910			343
1920	11,278		56
1930	13,962		56
1940
1950
1960	13,906		38
1970
1980
1990	14,433		23
2000	15,687		34
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

• Unknown

Main Ethnic Group(s)

• Unknown

Group(s) Excluded

• Black

Comments

Census figures show that Mitchell County’s black
population dropped significantly between 1900 and
1920 and again between 1920 and 1920. The black
population also failed to grow between 1920 and
1930 while the white population grew by over 2,000
people.

In 1923, blacks were brought in to build roads and
work in mines. After a white woman was raped by an
escaped black convict, a white mob in Mitchell County
drove out the black population.

“[My mother] thought there was a good chance a good
part of the county, if not the whole county, has some
sun down traditions… She has heard some stories of
intimidation in the area. A local told her of a black
who moved to the area and disappeared. A black
couple moved into the Burnsville area and left after
some time, but they told my mother it was because
they were nasty and people didn’t like them. There are
definitely people with the attitudes and ways of
thinking that blacks should not live with whites. When
she’s attended churches, some have by laws against
‘mixed race’ marriages. Even at the shelter where she
helps, women expressed that they didn’t want blacks
living there.”
-posted to the web, 2005