Mississippi Highway 8 intersects U.S. Route 49E southwest of Minter City, and the Tallahatchie River flows to the east.

Known as "Uncle Jimmy", Towne supported the local Methodist church, and was known to give each new preacher a wagon and mule.

[10] The African-American educator William H. Holtzclaw, founder of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute for the Training of Colored Young Men and Young Women (now part of Hinds Community College) in Utica, Mississippi, wrote about his experiences establishing schools for African-Americans in Mississippi in his book The Black Man's Burden, published in 1915.

In it, he describes meeting with a wealthy white plantation owner in Minter City to discuss the establishment of a school there: I believe you are about to engage in a good work, and I would like to see the Negro educated, but, candidly, I do not think that the kind of school you would like to start would do any good in the Delta.

Richard Roscoe, an African-American Baptist deacon and tenant farmer, had been in a physical altercation with the white plantation manager, and both men had been injured.

An hour later, Roscoe was abducted, shot dead, and then dragged through the streets of Minter City tied to the back of the sheriff's car.

Previously Black Bayou Elementary School in Glendora served southern parts of the West Tallahatchie district.