Vicksburg, Mississippi

The area that is now Vicksburg was long occupied by the Natchez Native Americans as part of their historical territory along the Mississippi. The first Europeans who settled the area were French colonists who built Fort Saint Pierre in 1719 on the high bluffs overlooking the Yazoo River at present-day Redwood. They conducted fur trading with the Natchez and others, and started plantations.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 35.3 sq mi (91 km²), of which 32.9 sq mi (85 km²) are land and 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km²) (6.78%) are covered by water.

Vicksburg is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. Much of the city is on top of a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River. Vicksburg is also served by Interstate 20. The interstate opens Vicksburg with a cloverleaf interchange that heads out to U.S. Route 61 North towards Rolling Fork, Mississippi, Clarksdale, Mississippi, and stretches out for another 77 miles towards Memphis, Tennessee. On the south part of the exit, it heads on Mississippi Highway 27 towards Utica, Mississippi. As the interstate goes on it makes interchanges with Clay Street, Indiana Avenue, and Halls Ferry Road. After the downtown interchanges are over, before finally crossing in Louisiana with a cloverleaf interchange, I-20 makes a directional T interchange with US-61, and US-61 heads south toward Port Gibson, Mississippi, Natchez, Mississippi, and then continues for another 92 miles into Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Louisiana's capital city. Interstate 20 then continues to head west towards Monroe, Louisiana, Shreveport, Louisiana, Dallas, and lastly after 445 miles, making a trumpet interchange with Interstate 10 in Toyah, Texas.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 21,573 people, 8,969 households, and 4,864 families residing in the city.

In 2017, Emma Green of The Atlantic stated, "The Army Corps of Engineers sustains the town economically".[9]

12.3% of the local workforce is employed by the federal government.[10]

The city government consists of a mayor who is elected at-large and two aldermembers. The current mayor is George Flaggs Jr., who defeated former mayor Paul Winfield in the June 2013 election. The two aldermembers are elected from single-member districts, known as wards.

The city is home to three large US Army Corps of Engineers installations: the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), which also houses the ERDC's Waterways Experiment Station; the Mississippi Valley Division headquarters; and the Vicksburg District headquarters.

The 412th Engineer Command of the US Army Reserve and the 168th Engineer Brigade of the Mississippi Army National Guard are also located in Vicksburg.

The United States Coast Guard's 8th District/Lower Mississippi River sector has an Aids To Navigation unit located in Vicksburg, operating the buoy tending vessel USCGC Kickapoo.[13]

Mississippi River at Vicksburg

The City of Vicksburg is served by the Vicksburg-Warren School District.

The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad and then the Illinois Central Railroad for several decades had passenger service through the city, at two different stations, one on Levee Street, and the other on Cherry Street. The IC's Planter went north to Memphis, Tennessee and south to New Orleans. The Chery Street station hosted the Northeastern Limited and an unnamed train east to Jackson and Meridian (sleeping car passengers could continue to New York; coach passengers could transfer at Meridian's Union Station to an Atlanta and New York bound train there), and the Southwestern Limited and another train west to Monroe and Shreveport's Union Station.[17][18] The final train serving Vicksburg was the Southwestern Limited/Northeastern Limited in 1967.

Interstate 20 runs east–west through the southern part of Vicksburg. U.S. Highway 80 runs east–west through the city. U.S. Highway 61 runs north–south through the city.

The nearest airport with commercial flights is Jackson–Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport, 53.2 miles to the east of Vicksburg. Vicksburgh Tallulah Regional Airport and Vicksburg Municipal Airport, to the west and to the south of Vicksburg, are, on the other hand, two general aviation airports.

• Vicksburg is mentioned in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley.
• Several delta blues songs mention Vicksburg, for instance Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere" and Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues"
• The city is mentioned multiple times in the series of books surrounding the Logan family, including Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976) and Let The Circle Be Unbroken (1981), by Mildred Taylor.
• A made-for-TV movie version of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, based on Maya Angelou's memoir, was filmed in Vicksburg.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? was filmed in Vicksburg. The Stokes campaign dinner was filmed in the Southern Cultural Heritage Center's auditorium.
• The hospital stairway scene from Mississippi Burning was filmed in the Southern Cultural Heritage Convent (with Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe).
• Vicksburg is featured in Robert A. Heinlein's 1982 science fiction novel Friday as a town in the Lone Star Republic, a leading smugglers' port between Texas and the Chicago Imperium. The book's protagonist Friday Baldwin stayed there, particularly in the riverfront Lowtown, while trying to find a way into the Imperium.
• In the novel Underground to Canada the protagonists Julilly and Liza are slaves on a cotton plantation near Vicksburg.
• Vicksburg was the focus of four episodes of the American television series Ghost Adventures during Season 19, with one episode dedicated to Champion Hill Battlefield.
• On Elton John's 1974 album Caribou, the song Dixy Lily contains the lyrics "Down from Louisiana on the Vicksburg run." in the chorus.

• USS Vicksburg, 5 ships

• Rothman, Joshua D.: Flush Times and Fever Dreams: A Story of Capitalism and Slavery in the Age of Jackson. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010.
• Cox, James L. The Mississippi Almanac. (2001). ISBN 0-9643545-2-7.
• History of Vicksburg's Jewish community

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Vicksburg.

• City of Vicksburg
• Vicksburg Chamber of Commerce
• "Vicksburg" . The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
• "Vicksburg" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XXIV (9th ed.). 1888. p. 211.
• "Vicksburg" . New International Encyclopedia. Vol. XX. 1905. p. 115.