Tourist Time: Vicksburg, MS

In researching Jackson, MS for my trip at the beginning of January, I found some cool places to visit in Vicksburg, which was just under an hour west of the city. Since the weather wasn’t great for doing too much exploring in the woods, I decided to head to Vicksburg after my expo visit.

My first stop was a cute little art store above a coffee shop that had all kinds of knick knacks, paintings, ceramics and everything else you could think of. This picture was from the stairway leading up to the store.

From there I attempted to find the Biedenharn Candy Company so that I could pick up a smashed penny from Mississippi, but after walking up and down the street a few times, I still couldn’t see to find it, so I did one last lap up to the Vicksburg hotel. 

Of course, as I came back down the other side of the street, I saw the building I was looking for… unfortunately it was closed, but the building still looked pretty cool.

After that, I headed down a few blocks to the river. The highest flood mark on the wall was from 1927 if the levees had held at 62.2 feet and the second mark down was from 2011 when the flood waters hit 57.1 feet.

Next to the river is the Old Depot Museum (also closed while I was there) and they have a few old train cars on abandoned tracks next to the river.

From the museum looking down Levee street towards Catfish Row Art Park.
The murals were really cool and walked you through the history of the city.

Most of the murals were images of the city, but a few were a bit more abstract.

I also found the catfish of the Catfish Row Art Park.

Just past the catfish, there was a section of artwork built into the walls of the walking path and included work from local schools.

As well as cutouts where you could look down towards the murals, and in my case, check out the mini-icicles that came with the changing weather.

The part also include a replica of the Sprague sternwheeler, including parts of the original ship, like the leats, vents, and capstans.

My final stop for the day was to check out the Vicksburg Bridge. Most of the best views of the bridge (at least from the Mississippi side) appeared to come from the casinos and eventually I was able to find a parking lot to sneak into for a few minutes to steal the picture below.

As you can see from the picture, the weather had started to turn a bit at this point wit ice balls starting to collect on the path and I since I was down next to the river, that meant I had to head up a quite steep hill to get back onto the main road. It was a little nerve-racking as the cars in front of me were spinning trying to get up the hill and another person was coming up from behind me, but luckily my little rental car was up to the challenge and I made it safely back on the road and on my way to my hotel to rest up for my race.