Leland S. Speed
former mayor of Jackson, Mississippi
Leland Speed (October 20, 1899 – August 8, 1971) was an investment banker and former mayor of Jackson, Mississippi and the husband of Katherine Rhymes Speed.
Biography
Speed was born on October 20, 1899, in Covington County, Mississippi, to Joseph W. and Nebraska Pickering Speed. He received a business degree from Bowling Green College. He ran for mayor successfully in 1945, defeating incumbent Walter Scott. He ran again in 1949, but was defeated by Allen C. Thompson. He died of "an apparent heart attack" at his home in Jackson on August 8, 1971.
The library at Mississippi College is named after Speed. The funds for the library were given by his children.
Personal life
Speed married Katherine Rhymes in 1931. They had five children: Leland Rhymes (1932–2021), James (1934–1935), Joseph Liston (1940-2024), Shellie (Speed) Bartlett, and Lake Chambers (born 1948).
The public source identifies “Leland S. Speed” as former mayor of Jackson, Mississippi. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Leland, Speed and former.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96036030. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1971, 1945 and 1949.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leland S. Speed” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.