Decaying Rapidly: Oil Mill of Port Gibson, Mississippi

Oil Mill, Anthony Street (4×5" Fuji Astia film, 135mm Schneider Xenar lens and too-small hood)

In late April (2022), a friend and I drove to Port Gibson, in Claiborne County, to look for interesting photo topics. We had both been to the unused oil mill on Anthony Street before and taken pictures there. But this visit, we were both amazed how the brush, poison ivy, and trees have overtaken the site and engulfed machines. Today, you can barely see through the fence, which supports luxuriant poison ivy growth. The jungle is taking over, as per many of the Life after People episodes. Here are some 2012 photographs from when the site was more visible. At that time, the gates were secure and I could not enter.

 Tachihara 4×5" camera, 135mm ƒ/3.5 Schneider Xenar lens, Fuji Astia film

Mill from corner of Anthony and Vanderhaven Streets (Fuji Astia film)

The Mississippi Cotton Oil mill may have been one of the first oil mills in the United States, with the original brick buildings dating to 1882. Preservation in Mississippi discussed the site in a short 2012 article. In the 1800s, cotton seed arrived by railroad. The rail line ran from the town of Grand Gulf to the depot in Port Gibson, but the tracks are now gone. I do not know when mill operations stopped. 

In February of 2012, I read an article in the Vicksburg Post about the mill, inspiring me to drive south to look at the site.

Disassembly of unit on Anthony Street

On that day, a crew of workers were disassembling machines on the north side of Anthony Street (the side nearest to Bayou Pierre. One of them said the machinery would be shipped to an oil company in Nigeria.

This is the view west along Anthony Street

Intact in 2012

Freshly collapsed approx. 2020 (Ilford Pan-F, Hasselblad 501CM, 50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens, 1/8 ƒ/11.5)

The front part of this building has collapsed. The brick unit to the rear looks like it is still mostly intact.

Vandeventer Street is rough, just horrifying. Many of these shotgun houses have disappeared. 

Port Gibson has some interesting photographic topics:

• I explored town on a gloomy December day using Ilford Pan-F film. 
• In 2019, I took some general photographs around town. 
• Wintergreen Cemetery is a walk through history. 
• The Historic Trace Theater burned and is now just a shell. 

The digital photographs above are from my Panasonic G1 µ4/3 camera. This was a very capable 12-mpixel camera, which I used in USA, Europe, and Nepal. Standby for some Hasselblad XPan panoramas in the future.