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Mississippi Highway 540

state highway in Mississippi

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ109313091 ↗
Source-derived summary

Mississippi Highway 540 (MS 540) is a state highway through Simpson and Smith counties in central Mississippi. First created in 1958, the highway consists of two segments- one running about 10+1⁄2 miles (16.9 km) from Harrisville to D'Lo and a second 21.7-mile-long (34.9 km) road from Mendenhall to Raleigh.

Route description

The western segment of MS 540 begins in the unincorporated community of Harrisville at an intersection with MS 469. The two-lane road heads through some curves descending in elevation, but eventually settles on an easterly course. MS 540 heads through wooded areas passing a few houses that were built along old alignments of the road. Changing to a slight east northeast heading, the highway crosses through wooded terrain with some rolling hills. The road's course changes back to due east as it changes its name to Jupiter Road and enters the town of D'Lo. After passing some houses, MS 540 crosses a railroad before the state highway ends at an intersection with MS 149 and East 4th Street.

MS 540's eastern segment begins at a T-intersection with MS 149 southeast of downtown Mendenhall, but still within the city limits. The road heads northeast and almost immediately intersects U.S. Route 49 (US 49), a divided highway.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mississippi Highway 540” is state highway in Mississippi. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mississippi, Highway and state, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1958—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Mississippi, Highway and state is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “state highway in Mississippi” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q109313091. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1958.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mississippi Highway 540”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mississippi Highway 540 primary sources, Mississippi Highway 540 archive and Mississippi research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mississippi Highway 540”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Mississippi Highway 540” 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.