Cross City was founded in 1854 by surveyors Houston Mitchell and Hamilton Mask where the Mobile & Ohio Railroad intersected with the Memphis & Charleston line, the only such site of its kind in the west at that time. Following the widespread Victorian fad of naming towns after classical locations, in 1855, Cross City was renamed "Corinth" after the famous crossroads of ancient Greece. Located only 10 miles from the Tennessee-Mississippi state line, Corinth has a long and colorful history of strategic importance to the entire country.