[4]: 580  Development of the settlement followed construction of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad, which established a stop here.

[4] In September 1899 the official petition to Governor Anselm J. McLaurin to incorporate contained 98 names of the 'citizens and electors of Sunflower County...[who] reside in the village' noting that 150 people currently lived inside the village.

[5] The rural area was being developed for cotton plantations after the American Civil War.

By the early 1900s, Ruleville had telephone and telegraph facilities, about 20 businesses, two white churches and one black church, a water works system, an electric light plant, three public gins, and excellent public schools for the white population.

[6] As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 2,642 people, 986 households, and 521 families residing in the city.

The City of Ruleville is served by the Sunflower County Consolidated School District.

During the Civil Rights Movement, 1964 was Freedom Summer, organizing for voter registration and education, and adding to the curriculum in the local segregated schools for blacks.

[16] Ruleville-Drew Airport is in unincorporated Sunflower County, between Ruleville and Drew.

[18] The North Sunflower Medical Center is a rural critical access hospital located in Ruleville, with 95 beds and approximately 500 employees.

[21][22] Larson, Kate Clifford "Walk With Me, a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer" Oxford University Press 2021