In 1899, Tom Tutwiler, a civil engineer for a local railroad, made his headquarters seven miles northwest of Sumner.

Like many other towns in the Mississippi Delta, Tutwiler stakes a claim to being the "birthplace of the blues".

A Mississippi Blues Trail marker honoring Handy was erected at the site on November 25, 2009.

[4] Tutwiler was also the childhood home of bluesmen John Lee Hooker and Frank Stokes.

In 1903, while waiting for a train in Tutwiler, in the Mississippi Delta, Handy had the following experience: A lean loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept ... As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. ...

The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.

[5][6]According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 1.3 square miles (3.4 km2), all land.

[7] As of the 2020 United States Census, there were 2,476 people, 323 households, and 206 families residing in the town.

"[7] As of 2001, Tutwiler residents work in prisons located throughout the Mississippi Delta, casinos in Tunica Resorts, and poultry and chicken processing plants in the surrounding area.

[11][12] Due to the town's poor economic status, around 1998 the leaders of Tutwiler decided to agree to construction of a prison nearby, which would provide hundreds of jobs.

To help facilitate the prison, the Town of Tutwiler constructed a sewage lagoon and a water tower.

The State of Mississippi and Tallahatchie County paid half of the cost of training of the correctional officers at the new prison.

[13] Kilborn said that when the $35 million facility opened in 2000 with 351 prisoners, including 322 from Wisconsin, it "seemed the salvation of" Tutwiler.

[7] Some area residents quit their jobs and began working as prison guards at the facility.

As of 2001, the prison had paid $600,000 to the county in property taxes annually and $5,350 per month to the town for water.

[7] Grayson was succeeded in 2009 by Genether Miller Spurlock, a former schoolteacher, and first black woman to be elected as mayor.

The United States Postal Service operates the Tutwiler Post Office.

[21] In 1997 the district closed the Hopson Bayou campus and moved the alternative school to the former Sumner Elementary.

New York Times journalist Peter T. Kilborn wrote that the facility was "worthy of a university".