The village of Bruce was incorporated in 1927. It was the last town in the county to be incorporated. The petition requesting the village charter was signed by W.W. Beckett, W.H. White, L.M. Beckett (W.W. Beckett’s wife), R.A. Tyson, D.E. Lester, and C.M. Beckett (W.W. Beckett’s son). On June 16, 1927 Governor Dennis Murphree issued a proclamation incorporating the village of Bruce.

It attained a population of 618 and was designated a town by Governor T.G. Bilbo in 1928 according to a history written by Q.T. Crowson and published in the CALHOUN COUNTY JOURNAL on June 16, 1977. At this time Bruce had a whistle stop railroad depot, four stores, and about a dozen houses. With the passage of time people from the surrounding area became residents of the new town. In the 2000 census the population was 2097.

The City of Bruce is located in the wooded hill country of northeast Mississippi and is surrounded by extensive timberlands. Although potentially valuable, these forests remained untouched until well into the 20th Century because access to them was limited. However, in 1924 E.L. Bruce Company, a Memphis firm, purchased 21,000 acres of timberland. A standard gauge railroad, the Mississippi and Skuna Valley Railroad, was built to connect with the Illinois Central (now the Illinois Central Gulf) Railroad’s main line some 22 miles to the west. A sawmill was soon put into operation. Just to the north of this mill the Bruce Company subdivided a tract of land into residential lots; laid out streets; dedicated sites for schools, parks and churches. This became the site for a community which housed many of the mill’s employees.