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Clarksdale was named in honor of founder and resident John Clark, brother-in-law of politician James Lusk Alcorn, whose plantation home is nearby.
Clarksdale has been historically significant in the development of the blues, a form of music distinctively African American. The Mississippi Blues Trail, now being implemented, is dedicating markers for historic sites such as Clarksdale's Riverside Hotel where Bessie Smith died after her auto accident on Highway 61.[7] The Riverside Hotel is just one of many historical blues sites in Clarksdale.[8]
In the past fifteen years, the Clarksdale community at large has come to see its Blues heritage as a viable economic resource worth exploiting. Initial resistance on the part of most affluent white business owners has given way to recognition of the African-American art form as a valuable culture vestige worth controlling. Early supporters of the effort to preserve Clarksdale's musical legacy despite the initial opposition included the award winning photographer and journalist Panny Mayfield, Living Blues magazine founder Jim O'Neal, and Attorney Walter Thompson, father of sports journalist Wright Thompson. In 1995 Mt. Zion Memorial Fund founder Skip Henderson purchased the Illinois Central Railroad passenger depot to save it from demolition. With the help of local businessman Jon Levingston and the Delta Council, Henderson received a $1.279 million dollar grant from the Federal Government to restore the passenger depot which was then transferred to ownership of Coahoma County to become part of a tourism locale dubbed "blues alley". The popularity of the Delta Blues Museum, the growth of the Sunflower River Blues Festival and Juke Joint Festivals, and recognition of Clarksdale's blues legacy by both the American and foreign press has continued.
