422 A BICENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI counties to sell the idea that the people needed to ignite a desire for “self-improvement.” McLean enlisted the assistance of TVA, Mississippi State University, and experts hired by Tupelo businessmen when needed. He linked each RCDC to a Tupelo civic club but made certain that city club members knew their role was to be good neighbors, not supervisors or advisors. Stressing that there was no Santa Claus, McLean insisted that the goal was always to increase profits. In 1946, he established the Community Development Foundation which played the role of providing seed monies. The RCDCs concentrated on basics and held community clean up days, leadership development, and increasing farm production. By the mid-1950s, there were fifty-six corporations and the annual RCDC meeting attracted 6,000 people. McLean covered all RCDC activities in his paper, which grew to have the largest circulation of any non- metropolitan paper in the country. McLean plowed the profits back into community development. Although Lee County’s population declined by 14 percent during the 1950s as family farms continued to disappear, the city of Tupelo grew by 49 percent. In one of the original RCDC sites, employment switched from 85 percent farm labor in 1947 to 80 percent industrial by 1960. Some leaders tried unsuccessfully to re-channel cotton farmers into truck farm production. Others tried to use the old Balance Agriculture With Industry model, bringing a fluorescent light bulb factory to Tupelo in 1947. McLean argued for more advanced type manufacturing done by smaller companies scattered about the counties as the best plan. In 1951, Rockwell moved in to produce Delta power tools. Large farmers still opposed industry attracting their male workers, but they were overruled. Two junior colleges were established in the Northeast Corner after World War II. Northeast Mississippi Junior College in Booneville and TUPELO AUTOMOBILE MUSEUM The Tupelo Automobile Museum highlights over 130 years of automotive design and technology and displays over 120 antique and classic vehicles in chronological order beginning with an 1886 Benz. The collection, now valued at more than $11 million was originally the private collection of broadcast and communications pioneer, Frank K. Spain. Now owned by an educational non-profit, the core collection is supplemented with rotating special exhibits throughout the year. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE TUPELO AUTOMOBILE MUSEUM In 1974, Corner leaders returned to lobbying for highway connections for the region, and Tupelo secured a branch campus of the University of Mississippi.