
ONWARD — The next step in bringing the Mississippi “Teddy Bear” story to life was taken Wednesday morning as state and federal officials broke ground on an interpretive center here.
The revered Mississippi story – in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot and kill a black bear captured by local hunter Holt Collier, inspiring the creation and wide reach of the “Teddy Bear” toy – will be showcased at the center, which is expected to open in December 2018.
U.S. Senator Thad Cochran, who secured $5.6 million in federal funding for the project, Gov. Phil Bryant, Transportation Commissioner Dick Hall, and several federal and state wildlife officials gathered at the future site of the center Wednesday morning for a ceremony.
Roosevelt’s great-great grandson Simon Roosevelt and Collier’s great-niece Ann Marie Parker also participated in the ceremony.
“This visitor center will remind all of those who will come in the future, young and old, the importance of the hunt itself, but also ethical hunting and public/private partnership, which has created the wonderful land conservation you have today in the Mississippi Delta,” Roosevelt said.
In 2004, legislation sponsored by Cochran and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson established the Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge and the Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge. The cost of the center, which is the brainchild of Greenville businessman Clarke Reed, is covered by the $5.6 million in federal funding, which was secured through the passing of two different Senate bills sponsored by Cochran.
Individual donors raised an additional $400,000 for the project. The Mississippi Department of Transportation is building a turning lane and ramp off U.S. Highway 61, though it is unclear how much that project will cost the state.
Bryant said the center will serve as “a gateway to the Delta,” attracting additional visitors to the region.
“The tourism, economic development and conservation part of all this all works together, and of course there will continue to be hunting in the Mississippi Delta, which is a large part, I think, of the tourism that we now see coming into the Delta,” Bryant said.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.