Prior to the war, Marion was a prosperous town inhabited by numerous planters and enslaved African Americans.

[4] In 1850, Congress donated land to Alabama and Mississippi in order to build the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, which bypassed Marion and constructed a station two miles to the southwest in a village called McLemore's Old Field (now the city of Meridian).

[4] During the 1850s, land values in Lauderdale County increased by 176 percent, which allowed many non-slaveholding whites to purchase slaves to grow cotton, build roads, and clear the surrounding forests for cultivation.

By 1860, Lauderdale County's enslaved population had more than doubled—a fact that fed support for secessionism after the election of Abraham Lincoln.

[4] On February 16, 1864, U.S. Army forces commanded by General William T. Sherman raided Marion and destroyed the railroad connecting it to Meridian.

[4] In 1870, voters opted to move the county seat from Marion to Meridian, which had expanded rapidly since the end of the Civil War.

The bypass ends at the northeast corner of Marion, and US 45 continues north-northeast from there 83 miles (134 km) to Columbus.

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.