Map - Wiggins, Mississippi (Wiggins)

Wiggins is a city in and the county seat of Stone County, Mississippi, United States. It is part of the Gulfport–Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 4,272 at the 2020 census.

Wiggins is named after Wiggins Hatten, the father of Madison Hatten, one of the area's original homesteaders. It was incorporated in 1904, and the 1910 census reported 980 residents. In the early 1900s, Wiggins prospered along with the booming timber industry. Wiggins was once headquarters of the Finkbine Lumber Company.

On January 21, 1910, between the hours of 11 am and 1 pm, more than half of the Wiggins business district was destroyed by fire. The fire started from unknown origin in the Hammock Building, a lodging house, and spread rapidly because of strong winds from the northwest. With no city fire department or waterworks, the residents of Wiggins resorted to bucket brigades and dynamite to stop the fire, which was confined to the east side of the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad. The fire consumed 41 business establishments, including the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad depot. Only two or three residential dwellings were destroyed, because most homes were built away from the business district.

Wiggins has long been known for its pickle production, and at one time boasted of being home to the world's largest pickle processing facility. However, the pickle processing facility is now closed, and although the timber industry has declined since the boom years, it still sustains many businesses in Wiggins.

On June 22, 1935, a mob of 200 white people lynched a black man, R. D. McGee. A white girl had been attacked, and McGee was suspected as the culprit. He was roused from his bed, and taken before the girl. She identified him, a day later, based on the clothing her attacker had been wearing. The same day it was reported that Dewitt Armstrong, another African-American was flogged for making insulting remarks to white women. On November 21, 1938, another black man, Wilder McGowan, was lynched by a mob of 200 white men for allegedly assaulting a 74-year-old woman. An investigator found there was no merit to the charge against McGowan, but rather that he was lynched because he "Did not know his place," and in addition had rebuffed a group of white men who had invaded a negro dance hall "looking for some good-looking nigger women". His death certificate indicated strangulation by "rope party". Although seventeen men were identified as participating in the lynching, the justice department decided no action was merited. In 2016, a group of white students at Stone High School put a noose around a black student's neck. The student's parent alleged that local law enforcement discouraged their family from filing a report.

In June 2021, Wiggins voters elected their first African-American mayor, Darrell Berry, who had served as mayor pro temp since November 2020 and then interim mayor since January 2021, following the death of the city's incumbent mayor. Berry had been an elected Wiggins alderman during three mayoral terms (12 years) prior to his election as mayor. As of June 2021, the city had three African-Americans simultaneously serving on the city council.