Rome May Have Had Tacitus, But Water Valley Had Bruce Gurner
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Guest Commentary
By Brandon Presley
Presley lives in Water Valley and is Vice-President of Strategic Initiatives at Edelen Renewables. He served 16 years as Mississippi Public Service Commissioner and was the 2023 Democratic nominee for Governor of Mississippi.
When I moved to Water Valley late last spring, I immediately began digging into the history of my new hometown. I wanted to know more about my new ‘little postage stamp of native soil” to borrow a line from Faulkner.
Someone, probably my Dupuy Street neighbor and longtime friend, Jack Gurner told me to reach out to Grant Thompson, the current Casey Jones Railroad Museum curator (and now Alderman-elect). Grant told me that the history of Water Valley was preserved by a host of local folks, but the contributions of the late Bruce Gurner was unparalleled. Grant began sharing some the old stories Bruce captured on tape decades ago by interviewing a wide cast of long-gone Water Valley characters.
Almost nightly, right after I shut the lights out, I pull up one of those audio files and head back in time to the days of Water Valley as the capital of railroading during the heyday of the Illinois Central Railroad.
Many communities that I’ve visited across our state have a storied history and, unfortunately, not many have had a master historian like Bruce Gurner who dedicated time and effort to preserving it and passing it along. From Bruce’s collection of railroad memorabilia that is now housed in the Casey Jones Railroad Museum to his, along with some friends, collecting and transporting to Water Valley all the artifacts from the Casey Jones Museum that formerly was in operation at the famous wreck site in Vaughan, no one has left an imprint on local history like this man that I never had the pleasure of meeting.
Whether its his railroad collection or audio tapes of him and Fred Kendrick riding around Water Valley telling stories of days long ago to their trip to the city cemetery on Blackmur Drive where they walk row-by-row and discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of some of our city’s past, Bruce Gurner left behind a legacy that is Smithsonian-quality and serves to teach us (especially we newcomers) so much that would have been lost to history had Bruce not put in the work.
Now, to be sure, there are some ugly sides of things that weren’t part of Water Valley’s “shining city on a hill” days and through a modern lens, they look awful. But, Bruce saved it for us. Because he did the work, we can learn from it, grow and progress. As my mentor, former Georgia Governor Zell Miller said during his fight to change that state’s flag, “To study the past is one thing, to prefer it is another.”
Much has been made over the years of the Roman historian, Tacitus. Well, I’m sure he was a nice enough fellow and deserves all the accolades that have been bestowed upon him. But, in my mind, right next to ole Tacitus in his Roman garb should be a man from Water Valley clad in overalls and an “Illinois Central Railroad Historical Society” cap named Bruce Gurner.
