Whitworth College Collection

Whitworth College was established as a Methodist women's college in 1858 by Milton J. Whitworth as the successor to the renowned Elizabeth Female Academy in Washington, which had been destroyed by fire. Mr. Whitworth was a Brookhaven planter and businessperson who convinced railroad officials to divert the route of the railroad through Brookhaven and convinced A.E. Moreton, the architect of the French Opera House in New Orleans, to design the buildings of the new Whitworth College. Moreton remained to design several imposing residences and to make his home in Brookhaven.

During the Civil War Whitworth College became a Confederate hospital. After the war, it reopened with Mr. Whitworth's financial support and played an important role in Mississippi higher education for many years. In 1928, it became a junior college, noted for the prominent musicians who came from all over the country to give performances on the campus.

After 1938 Whitworth College was affiliated briefly with Millsaps College, became a day school, and then an evening school for veterans attending college on the G.I. bill. From 1960 to 1976, it was operated by the Methodist Protestant Church as a four-year college and from 1976 to 1983 as Whitworth Bible College by a group of Christian businessmen.

Declining enrollment led to a final but futile effort to maintain the school as the Brookhaven Center for Leadership and Development. The school closed in 1984.

In 2003, the state of Mississippi opened the Mississippi School of the Arts on the grounds of the former college.