Iuka Chalk Mine

My wife, Catharine, and I went adventuring over Mother’s Day Weekend, adventuring around North Alabama. I had, for some time, wanted to visit the abandoned chalk mine in Tishamingo County MS. The mine is most easily accessed by boat, but not having one, we hiked in. There is no trailhead, and the mine is on private property, so finding where to go was a bit tricky. Once we got down into the bottom of the ravine that the path from the lake is on, we walked right past the opening. I had read that the mine was several acres in size, so I was looking for a proper mine entrance. However, at one point in time, the two openings were covered, but someone had reopened one of the entrances, but it is just big enough for a person to slide in. It has a small opening, but once inside it is several acres. It has three long tunnels connected by shorter crossing tunnels. Although the grafetti was impressive, it was interesting to see the construction (originally connected by a path to Pickwick Lake.) It was active in the civil war. The chalk mine was started to supply chalk for the manufacture of gun powder during the Civil War. It operated until the late 1890’s.

Uniontown, AL