My new home town

Hey there,

This week’s post is a follow on from last week’s one about Ole Miss, since I’m going to write a bit about Oxford, the town that Ole Miss is situated in and where I’ll be living for 4 months.

Oxford is a small town in the north of the state of Mississippi, and is roughly 100kms south of Memphis, Tennessee and roughly 250kms north of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. It’s quite inland, and is a 5 hour drive from the nearest coastline (a bit different than living on the Peninsula and being a 3 minute drive!). The town is roughly 26km squared, which is just a bit larger than Frankston (which is 21km squared). It has a population of around 24,000, where the dominant racial demographic is white (~70%).

Oxford was founded in 1837 and was purposely named after the British city of Oxford (home of Oxford University) in the hopes that one day the state would choose it to be the home of the state university in the future. Their dream came true in 1841 when the state chose to house the new state university in Oxford, and the university eventually opened in 1848.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the Oxford area was invaded and many buildings in the central town square were burned down. Some of the buildings at the University also served as a hospital and mortuary.

In 1962 during the Civil Rights Movement, Oxford drew national attention because of the Ole Miss Riot. This riot occurred because an African American man, James Meredith, was given permission via a ruling of the federal court to enrol at Ole Miss, but there was extreme racially-fuelled objection to this by residents of Oxford. There was a massive protest, cars were burned, officials were attacked with rocks, and two men were killed due to gunshot wounds.

The town has relatively similar weather to Mornington given their similar latitudes (latitude can affect climate). So when I arrive in August, I’m looking at an average of 33°C each day, and a 12°C average in December. Oxford is part of the Central Time Zone, so for the first few months I will be 15 hours behind Melbourne time. When Melbourne goes into daylight savings time in October, I’ll be 16 hours behind, and 17 hours behind from the beginning of November when daylight savings time ends for Oxford.

There’s plenty of places to eat in Oxford from breakfast restaurants, to diners, cafés, bakeries, delis, steakhouses, BBQ grills, burger bars, international cuisine (Indian, Mexican, Thai), sweets stores, juice bars and fine dining places. It also hosts a bunch of popular fast food chains that I’m keen to try including Chick-fil-a, Chipotle, Five Guys, iHop, Panera Bread, as well as good old Maccas. There’s also lots of shopping to do, from antiques stores to books, florists, furniture, sporting goods, pharmacies, boutiques, jewellery, shoes and department stores. There’s also a Walmart Superstore.

The town also features some attractions such as museums, art galleries, theatres, blues archives, civil rights monuments, biking trails, 3 golf courses, a bunch of parks and camp grounds. There’s always events going on in Oxford like festivals, exhibitions, markets, crawls, concerts and tours, as well as all the events (particularly sporting ones) happening at the university, which the whole town gets around.

Overall, Oxford is a quaint country town, but is big enough (mostly thanks to the University) to have plenty to do and see. I hope to check it all out in my time there!

Thanks for reading! Subscribe to keep updated!

- Emily xx