Holt Collier Visitor and Interpretive Center: Sharkey County, Mississippi

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Holt Collier and the 1902 Bear Hunt / Teddy Bear

In 1902 Holt Collier was asked to lead the hunting party of President Theodore Roosevelt. The president was coming to the Yazoo Delta to hunt and kill a Louisiana Black Bear. Collier selected the site for the hunt. It was on the little Sunflower RIver in Sharkey County, near the town of Onward, Mississippi.

The hunting camp picked by Collier was in the middle of a very thick forest. One reporter described the area as “practically unbroken wilderness. There are no settlers for miles in any direction . . . A trail has been cut to camp, which consists of three sleeping tents and one cook tent.”