William Bell Montgomery

After some years in agriculture in Mississippi, he became a cotton broker in Mobile, Alabama, where he lived until after the American Civil War. Although he had been opposed to the war and took no active part in it, he was loyal to the South.

In 1865, his health forced him to return to Mississippi where his mother and many of his relatives lived, and he became a model farmer. He introduced new grasses, as well as introducing a herd of Jersey cattle from the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel, and for over three decades was an agricultural leader in Oktibbeha County and northern Mississippi. Montgomery is credited with revolutionizing agriculture in northern Mississippi.

After a fire swept through Starkville on April 25, 1875, destroying 52 buildings, Montgomery proved to be one of the area's strongest promoters.

In 1870, he founded the Starkville Female Institute which was later taken over by the city of Starkville as the public school. In 1875, he founded the Livestock Journal as its editor, publisher, and owner. The following year he began the publication of the Southern Livestock Journal which was edited by his son, and for a time it ranked as a leading agricultural magazine in the South. The Southern Livestock Journal later became the Southern Farm Gazette and eventually merged with the Progressive Farmer.

When the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mississippi (now known as Mississippi State University) was established in 1878, Montgomery was a leader in securing it for Starkville, and for 26 years he served as the local trustee for the college. Montgomery Hall on the campus of Mississippi State is named for Montgomery.^[2]

Montgomery died September 25, 1904, in Starkville, Mississippi. A portrait of him by Arthur L. Bairnsfather was included in the Hall of Fame in the Mississippi Capitol established in 1903.^[3]