Madison’s Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler is the second longest-serving female mayor in the nation. She will be finishing out her 11th consecutive term in 2024.
Known as Mayor Mary, she is credited with turning a small city with little or no identity into what it is today one of the most desirable cities in which to live in the state. Back in the 1980s, the city’s budget was only a few hundred thousand dollars. It’s now more than $30 million.
In 1981, when Hawkins Butler became mayor of Madison, the city’s population was 2,200.
More than 40 years later, Madison’s population is more than 25,000, and the city often makes lists as one of the most desirable places in which to live in the state.
Madison has been listed in national publications. Family Circle magazine once listed Madison as one of the best places in the nation in which to raise a family, citing the city’s strict building and zoning regulations, good schools, volunteerism and safety.
But will Hawkins Butler run for a 12th term in 2025?
“You know, I have always said the only way I am going to leave office is in a box, either a pine box or the ballot box,” Hawkins Butler said this week. “So, the answer is I will be running in 2025.”
Filing deadline is still more than a year away, but there is no hesitation for Hawkins Butler, who ran unopposed in 2021 and there is no one who has suggested they might run against her in 2025.
Hawkins Butler said she still has more to accomplish on the job, and she still has goals, whether stated or that she has in her mind.
“I don’t think the job is ever really complete,” Hawkins Butler said. “We have always been a little town with a big vision. We have always wanted to be unique and special in Mississippi.”
Hawkins Butler has always made sure that her mark is on everything that comes to Madison.
The city requires that businesses conform to a specific exterior architecture look if they want to be a part of the city.
When Walmart wanted to come to Madison in the early 2000s, she battled it tooth and nail to conform to her vision. Virtually everyone thought she would eventually back down.
When Walmart opened in 2003, it was unlike any other Walmart in Mississippi because of its red brick walls and white Doric columns, which were demanded by Hawkins Butler. Cities and towns throughout the nation now mimic Madison in the way they build their communities.
“We wanted to build something unique and special in Mississippi. We always wanted to build a place that people want to call home,” Hawkins Butler said. “We redefined economic development. We said housing would be our industry and people would be our business. We wanted to build this place in the Metro area and in Mississippi where people want to live and raise their children.”
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She has helped remake downtown Madison as new businesses continue to open and much of that is her fighting to keep five-lane traffic out of that area and making sure Madison Parkway was built to bypass the historic area.
“We knew it was the right thing to do,” Hawkins Butler said. “People want to be able to walk and shop and feel safe. We wanted to slow down the traffic in those areas, not have more traffic.”
It has paid off with projects like developer Greg Johnston’s Magnolia District in Downtown Madison, which will be home to The Foxtail Restaurant.
When up and running, The Foxtail will offer craft cocktails, raw oysters, fresh seafood and other eats in a 10,000 square foot facility.
“They will be a great catalyst not only for our development, but also the city’s Madison at Main project that adjoins us,” Johnston said.
The Madison at Main project has had its ups and downs. A version of it was proposed in 2020 and was slated to be a $100 million mixed-use development that would become the heart of the city’s downtown district. The city block of developments will be bound by Madison Street to the north, Madison Avenue to the south and Highway 51 to the east.
The project fell through during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Hawkins Butler is as bullish as ever about the project.
“It’s not what it was but we feel like in the end it will be even better than we originally planned for,” she said. “We don’t have anything to announce yet, but we are working with several developers and business owners on that end.”
Some may call her stubborn. Some may call her patient.
Whatever the case, it has paid off.
When Chipotle opened in Madison in October, it looked like none other with Corinthian columns and a brick façade.
“We have put policies in place that protect property values and make for a safe community,” Hawkins Butler said. “We came to this wanting to creating our own market where people wanted to come and businesses wanted to come. We think we have done that.”
She said she has taken some heat for that over the years.
“Yes, I was a little young (27 years old) when I took over here,” Hawkins Butler said. “But I looked at other places and saw what I wanted Madison to be. I don’t think I have strayed from what my original vision was and I will never stray from that. That is my duty to the people who live here.”
Ross Reily can be reached by email at rreily@gannett.com or 601-573-2952. You can follow him on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter @GreenOkra1.
