The Help in Jackson Driving Tour, Part II

Want to see these points on a map? Check out our combined The Help in Belhaven Neighborhood Tour and The Help in Jackson Driving Tour via Google Maps. Want this tour to go on your smartphone? It can easily be viewed in Google Maps for smartphones. Click here for the map.

Click here to download the PDF version (pdf 3.44 MB) .

(Continuing from the Help in Belhaven Neighborhood Tour)

 Continue from Fairview Street and take a left on to North State Street. Go south on North State Street and take a left on High Street.

19. Carter Jewelers

711 High Street

“You remember that time Miss Walter make you pay for the crystal class you broke? Ten dollars out a your pay? Then you find out them glasses only cost three dollars apiece down at Carter’s?” 

Carter Jewelers is one of the oldest names in jewelry in the Jackson area. Not only does Carter specialize in diamonds, but also in crystal. During the 1960’s, most of the women from the Junior League would have received their crystal from Carter’s, especially as wedding gifts.

Continue driving east. Turn right at the Fairgrounds entrance.

20. Coliseum
Mississippi State Fairgrounds

While dining with Stuart’s family and his father, a senator, Skeeter hears about a bill being passed to build the coliseum. A 6, 500 seat, multi-purpose arena, the Coliseum was built in 1962 and is used for concerts, sporting events, trade shows, and livestock shows under a nearly 2.5 acre, umbrella-shaped roof.

Backtrack on High Street until you reach the Capitol on your left.

21. Mississippi State Capitol  
400 High Street
Designed by architect Theodore Link and completed in 1903, the Mississippi State Capitol, patterned after the nation’s capitol in Washington, D.C., exemplifies the Beaux Arts Classical style of architecture and today serves as the working seat of state government. Often referred to as the “New Capitol,” the building boasts exceptional examples of stained glass, faux finishes, and marble from around the world. This is where Stuart's father would have been as a senator. The state capitol is available for tours Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Reservations are required for all groups. Please contact 601-359-3114.

Continue to Lamar Street and turn left.

22. Sun and Sand Hotel

401 N. Lamar Street

“The Sun and Sand Bar is closed and I go by slow, stare at how dead a neon sign seems when it’s turned off.” 

Naming the hotel after the landmark Mississippi Gulf Coast hotel he owned, R.E. Dumas Milner opened the Sun and Sand Motor Hotel in October 1960. Because of it’s close proximinty to the state capitol and moderate prices, the Sun and Sand Hotel became popular after the King Edward Hotel closed in 1965. As Skeeter mentions in The Help, the hotel had a bar and was one of the first bars to open in Jackson after anti-liquor laws were repealed in 1965. The hotel closed in 2001.

Continue south on Lamar to Griffith.

23. Robert E. Lee Hotel

 North Lamar at Griffith Streets

“We take William’s Oldsmobile to the Robert E. Lee Hotel.” 

The Robert E. Lee Hotel was home to many social events throughout The Help, including the infamous Benefit. The building was built in 1930 as a luxury hotel and was advertised as one of the finest hotels in the South. The hotel offered private baths, efficient telephone service, ceiling fans, and individual radios in all of its 300 guest rooms. The twelfth floor featured a convention hall and roof garden, creating a popular social gathering place for visitors and Jacksonians. It was converted into a state office building in 1969.

Continue on Lamar to Capitol Street and turn left. The Governor’s Mansion is on the left and the Lamar Life Building is directly across the street.

24. Governor’s Mansion
 300 E. Capitol Street

“She backtracks to her first job at thirteen, cleaning the Francis the First silver service at the governor’s mansion. She reads how on her first morning, she made a mistake on the chart where you filled in the number of pieces so they’d know you hadn’t stolen anything.” 

Bordered by a high iron and brick fence, the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion occupies an entire city block south of Smith Park. Completed in 1841, the mansion was designed by state architect William Nichols in the Greek Revival style. Having served as the official residence of Mississippi’s first family since January 1842, the mansion is the second-oldest continuously occupied gubernatorial residence in the United States. In 1975, the mansion was designated a National Historic Landmark. The Governor’s Mansion is open for tours Tuesday-Friday, 9:30-11 a.m., on the half hour. Admission is free, call 601-359-6421 to confirm availability.

25. Lamar Life Building

317 E. Capitol Street

“I coast past the tall Lamar Life building, through the yellow blinking street lights."

Built in 1924-25 to serve as the headquarters for Mississippi’s oldest home-based insurance company, this ten-story building was hailed at the time as Jackson’s first “skyscraper.” The building was designed with Gothic motifs and high crenellated clock tower to complement the style and form of St. Andrew’s Cathedral.

Sanquinet, Staats and Hendrick, the Texas firm who designed the building, also concurrently designed the home of Christian Welty, father of author Eudora Welty and senior officer at Lamar Life Insurance Company, on Pinehurst Street in Belhaven.

Take a left on North State Street and drive north past the University of Mississippi Medical Center to where the street forks. Bear right (Old Canton Road) and turn left at the third traffic light on to Duling Avenue.

26. Brent’s Drugs

655 Duling Avenue

 Brent’s Drugs with soda fountain was opened in 1946 by pharmacist Alvin Brent. The local drug store in Fondren is where Skeeter picks up products and prescriptions for her mother. This is also where she is confronted by Elizabeth and Lou Anne Templeton after Skeeter’s book is published.
 
 Scenes from the motion picture of The Help were filmed inside the store, as well as outside the surrounding strip. Evidence of the film remain in the mural of “the happy shopper” in between Brent’s and McDade’s Grocery store. Brent’s still operates as the soda fountain of its heyday. Stop by for a hamburger, egg and olive sandwich, or limeade made to order Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or Sunday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Turn left on North State Street.

27. Fondren, North State storefronts

North State Street, from Hartsfield to Mitchell Avenue

This strip of Fondren store fronts along North State Street from Hartsfield to Mitchell were used for various scenes filmed for the motion picture. Some signs and paint from the film remain, including the white gas station, now Butterfly Yoga studio, and Jackson Shoe Repair signs. While you’re in the neighborhood, stop for lunch or dinner at one of many fine restaurants, and shop the charming local boutiques.

Return by State Street to Woodrow Wilson and turn right.

28. Woodrow Wilson Bridge

“Six days a week, I take the bus across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to where Miss Leefolt and all her white friends live, in a neighborhood call Belhaven. Right next to Belhaven be the downtown and the state capital”  

This bridge, as Aibileen describes in the first pages of The Help, crosses the border between West Jackson and North Jackson.

Veer right on Medgar Evers Blvd.

29. Freedom Corner

Intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. and Medgar Evers Blvd.

At the crossroads of two prominent, slain civil rights activists sits a memorial in their honor.

Take a right on Ridgeway Street and right onto first street on the right, Missouri Street. Left on Guynes St./Margaret Walker Alexander Dr.

30. Medgar Evers Home and Museum

2332 Margaret Walker Alexander Drive

“Medgar Evers, the NAACP officer who live five minutes away, they blew up his carport last night. For talking.” 

Evers was the first field secretary for the NAACP in Jackson at the time of his death, June 12, 1963. The small house and site of his assassination, and the neighborhood of similar houses that surround it, make palpable the very simple longings for freedom and opportunity that drove the Civil Rights Movement. As a museum and a house in a historic district, the renovated structure informs those who visit of the many sacrifices that took place in Jackson and in Mississippi, and presents a modern link in the succession of Mississippi landmarks that communicate the history of the state. The Medgar Evers Home is also a site on the Mississippi Freedom Trail. The home is open for tours by appointment only. Admission is free. For more information, contact the Office of EDC at Tougaloo College at 601-977-7839 or the Office of Public Relations at 601-977-7842.

To return downtown, take a left onto Ridgeway Street from Missouri Street and left onto Medgar Evers Blvd.