Brookhaven: Discover Culture and History

Brookhaven is a destination for anyone who would like to combine their stay with history, architecture, and cultural discoveries. Former railway and power plant buildings, museums, a theater, and a self-guided tour through Old Towne offer various options for planning your days. Depending on your interests, you can combine quiet sightseeing, shared discoveries, and a walk through distinctive streets.

Arriving and Planning Your Stay

Brookhaven is served by Amtrak at the Godbold Transportation Center. The transportation hub is located in a former power plant and opened in 2011. For those arriving by train, the building therefore offers a special first impression of the town.

Anyone who enjoys combining different interests in one trip will find several cultural starting points in Brookhaven. The campus of Whitworth College is designated as a Mississippi Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Historic Whitworth College was founded in 1858; today, the campus has been restored as the Mississippi School of the Arts. The history of an educational institution and a present-day cultural use thus come together here.

Museums and Historic Buildings

The Military Memorial Museum is located in Brookhaven’s former railway depot. On display are photographs, artifacts, and personal belongings of veterans from the region. The museum also presents military equipment dating from the period since World War I. For visitors interested in regional memories and military history, this museum visit can be planned as a distinct cultural focus.

The museum in B'nai Sholom Temple also focuses on a special part of the town’s history. A permanent installation explains the building’s religious architecture, while additional content presents the history of Brookhaven’s Jewish community. The Foster-Smith Log Cabin was built in 1825 by John Foster along an old post road in Copiah County. It is located in Railroad Park across from the Chamber of Commerce and complements the museum and architecture themes with an example of early regional building history.

Old Towne, Theater, and Events

Old Towne Brookhaven can be explored on a self-guided tour of the mansions on South Jackson Street and in the surrounding area. The route can be discovered on foot or by car. This allows you to decide for yourself whether to take the tour as a walk or drive to the individual stops. A distinctive landmark in the downtown area is the Homeseeker’s Paradise Sign at the intersection of West Cherokee Street and South Whitworth Avenue.

For a cultural evening, there is the Brookhaven Little Theatre at 126 W. Cherokee Street. The theater presents three productions per year. You should check the dates to suit your travel plans, as the number of productions does not indicate a specific performance time. At one edition of the Ole Brook Festival, there were arts and crafts stalls and live entertainment in the downtown area. The festival can therefore serve as an example of an event where local crafts and stage entertainment came together.

The Right Accommodation for Your Travel Plans

When looking for a holiday apartment in Brookhaven, it is worth first deciding what you want your days to be like. If the trip is to focus primarily on museums and architecture, several cultural themes can provide a common thread. If you prefer to explore independently, you can include the Old Towne tour in your plans and choose between walking and driving. For a mixed trip, theaters, historic buildings, and a museum visit can be combined in different ways.

A holiday apartment or vacation home is well suited as a base for a self-planned trip in which you arrange excursions according to your interests. Brookhaven does not offer just one attraction as its sole theme, but rather several clearly distinct points of interest: railway and local history, Jewish life, military history, architecture, theater, and events.

For the overall travel overview: Lincoln County.