Two Dollar Tours of Monticello

A couple of weeks ago when I was giving one of my “Two Dollar Tours” of Monticello to my cousin and her friends from the west, McDonough, I will admit that I embellished a bit on the history of the city.

I wowed them with the courthouse used in the world-wide famous movie, “My Cousin Vinny.” I even let them sit momentarily in the jury chairs.

Then it was on to a particular spot on Greene Street where I let them view both the dome of the courthouse and the Bank of Monticello and point out the similarities between them and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Noting that we call our town, Monticello, instead of the Jeffersonian enunciation, Monticello.

I let them stand outside the 1st Bank of Monticello where those notorious bank robbers, Bonnie and Clyde, stole millions and then handed out samples to the crowd that had gathered with their cameras.

If you are not familiar with this location, don’t be alarmed, if the truth be known Bonnie and Clyde never crossed the Mississippi River to rob any banks, hiccup, except for this one time.

From taking many tours, some more than once, tour guides seem to tweak history to suit the crowd. If I am doing this tour with folks from above the Mason and Dixon line, the soldier standing in the square is known as the “Lost Yankee.”

Hey, that story is particularly heart-warming when I tell about a bunch of local, wanna-be Scarlett O’Hara’s who tore their petticoats to doctor the “Lost Yankee’s” wounds received in the famous battle of Seven Islands. I tell them to look for the street signs on the way out of town named for the battle.

Unfortunately, due to limited space I cannot describe my “Magnolia and Antebellum Tour,” or the popular, “Eat Your Way through Jasper County Tour.”