Eudora Welty House & Garden — Attraction in Jackson

My 2nd visit today, 9/17/2025. Mrs. Welty and I share the same birthday!!! 😃 The tour is free each Wednesday in 2025 and on the 13th of each month all year long.

Taking a 2nd tour allowed me to visit garden while flowers are blooming. The garden is simply beautiful and there is a guided 20 minute tour per recording. I truly enjoyed the tour and the details.

I’ve lived maybe 20 miles from this National Historic Landmark and have never gone until now. The tours are every 2 hours so check schedule on website. They also have limited space for each tour.

There is a store with books and other items to purchase. Entrance is free on the 13th of every month which I didn’t know but happened to go on the 13th. Her awards are displayed in the house with bookstore. The tour guide Sam stated that after she passed they found them in a closet under a stack of books or papers. She never hung any of them. Well, she loved to write and didn’t do it to win prizes.

Before the tour you will watch a 20 minute video. Eudora Welty is speaking, sharing and sometimes reading from one of her books.

I absolutely love that they give tours of house. The tour guide gave detailed information. You are allowed to take photos but have to stay on the gray carpet.

The home is decorated circa 1980. All of Eudora Welty books seem to be laying as she may have left them before passing. There are 3,000 books in her home. 2,000 are at MDAH. She donated the house to MDAH long before passing.

Her parents purchased the home in 1925. They wanted to live across the street from Belhaven College.

There is so much history in the home and the garden is so beautiful and inviting. I also love the side pitch attached to home.

I highly recommended taking the time to visit this site if you are a history and/or...

We arrived at the house but they were repaving the street outside so it was difficult to find a place to park. Should not be a problem now. The exhibit house displays her awards for her writing and some of her items that she owned. There are signs that tell a little about her life. This is where you start and wait for the tour guide. Once you go next door with the tour guide you get to explore Eudora's house as it was while she lived there. I really liked her books strewn about the house, it made me connect with her as that's they way my books are often displayed :-) Eudora had approximately 5,000 books. I've got to step up my collection! Ha! It's pretty cool to see where she worked and hear stories of her life. Eudora was a prolific writer, writers write! Her garden was lovingly restored to its former glory with help from Eudora's photos. She climbed out of her upstairs window on the roof to take pictures of the flowers and garden rooms below. The docent was extremely knowledgeable and engaging. Although the tour was 2 hours long it seemed much shorter and was well worth the 4 hour drive we took to get there. One other thing to note, Wednesdays have free admission, though the cost on other days...

We were staying in Jackson and had some time in the afternoon, so we picked Ms. Welty's home. Not enormous fans, but I liked several of her books, and my mother was a very big fan. Turns out that the tours are on a timetable, and calling ahead is highly recommended. But the person in the office offered to let us catch up with the tour already in progress, and when the tour ended, our guide went back and led us through the part we missed. She was extremely knowledgeable and after we had spent some time in the garden, we went back to the exhibit section and she started up the film especially for us. We felt like we had our own personal tour. Admittedly, the house is not especially busy this time of year, but we were very grateful for the attention we received. It made the experience especially enjoyable. And helped develop a better appreciation for a true icon of American literature. The staff love their subject and they demonstrate it so well. Ms. Welty would be proud of...