[1] In July 1947, the area that is now the UMFS opened as Ole Miss Fisheries, Inc., a fish farm that later became Minnows Incorporated and operated by the Herbert Kohn Corporation.

The fish farm comprised 165 acres (67 ha) of bottomland along the Bay Springs Branch of Puskus Creek that was purchased from the Hickey family.

After the construction of the first set of ponds, the area alongside an unnamed stream stretching about 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of Bay Springs Branch was dynamited for drainage and cleared of timber.

Additional attempts to raise American bullfrogs were also not successful, possibly due to predation on the tadpoles or the spread of disease in confined spaces.

[2]: 5–6  The Mississippi National Guard Engineering Company C constructed the 45 0.1-acre (0.040 ha) ponds and a house for the field station's manager during two summer camps in 1990 and 1991.

[3] Several agencies have or continue to support projects at the field station including the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks, USDA Agricultural Research Service National Sedimentation Laboratory, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Peace Corps, Shell Development Corporation, Zoecon, ABC Laboratories, Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute, and Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

[2]: 11 The UMFS encompasses 781 acres (316 ha) of the Eocene hills of the interior Gulf Coastal Plain along the headwater streams of the Little Tallahatchie River.

[1] The soils were originally primarily loess but were severely degraded from forest clearing and poor agricultural practices that occurred after European settlement in 1832.

[5][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] [15] The Yazoo darter (Etheostoma raneyi), a fish endemic to headwater streams of the Tallahatchie and Yocona river systems of north Mississippi, can be found at the field station.