Another Random Walk around Vicksburg, Mississippi (2021-2023)

Downtown

In the last article, I looked at houses along South Washington Street. Let's take a semi-random walk in the southern part of Vicksburg plus one view downtown and see what interesting photons passed through my camera lens and into the film emulsion. Most of these frames will also be from color negative film, mostly Kodak Ektar 100. Please click any picture to see more details.

Downtown Vicksburg from China Street (Royal Gold 25 film, Leica M2, 50mm ƒ/2 Summicron-DR lens)

As of 2023, The Vicksburg apartments are being renovated. Residents had to move to other accomodations around town. I hope this continues a downtown revival. The brick building in the left is the long-unused Junius Ward Johnson YMCA. It has been empty for at least 20 years. 

South Washington Street Area

View west towards the Mississippi River from Washington Street (Hasselblad, 80mm ƒ/2.8 lens)

This the view west to the Mississippi River (the shiny water at the horizon). The Yazoo canal is out of sight just beyond the water tower. The water tower is a remnant of the cotton compress, of which very little remains now. With an amazing view like this, in most cities, a neighborhood like this would have gentrified. This one is still a mess.

Washington Street view north near Bowman Street

Tri-State Tire, 2209 Washington Street

This unusual building with decorated arches was once an ice company. Then, in the 1960s, it was the Seale-Lily ice cream store. Mr. Christ bought it in the 1970s and converted the building into a tire business. His daughter, Susan Christ, runs the business now and provides courteous and efficient service. I wrote about Tri-State in 2018. 

1009 (?) Bowman Street

1007 and 1009 Bowman Street

Turn right from Washington Street onto Bowman Street. Some of the housing stock is seriously degraded. 

Magnolia School, Bowman Street

The former Magnolia School has been unused since at least the mid-1980s. Former windows were bricked in decades ago. From the 1920s to the 1950s, this was one of the most progressive schools for African-American students. J.G.H. Bowman, the principle of Magnolia Avenue High School, was highly respected for his dedication and accomplishments in running the school. The street is now named after him. 

807 Speed Street

It looks like the occupants ran out of blue paint. Speed Street is pretty rough.

Drummond Street Area

Pink house, 2721 Green Street

Ducks in a row, 911 Bowmar Avenue 

2815 Drummond Street

This four-unit apartment has been empty for at least five years. The front porch is sagging. As so often with these older houses, status unknown.

Johnny's truck, Candee Street

This ends our short walk around Vicksburg. I took the 2023 photographs with Kodak Ektar 100 film using my new Pentax Spotmatic F camera and 50mm ƒ/1.4 or 55mm ƒ/1.8 SMC Takumar lenses. Watch for more Vicksburg photographs soon. Thanks for coming along!

Houses of South Washington Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

 I like the downtowns of older American cities, where homes were once built with care and a degree of individualism. Over the decades, the neighborhoods have mellowed, trees have become mature, and the homes changed to reflect their owners or tenants. You also see neglect, decay, and, sometimes, some revitalization. South Washington Street in Vicksburg shows all these elements, although one sees very little revitalization. I have waited for Vicksburg to gentrify for 30+ years, but there is almost no evidence of this happening. This is a real shame considering its rich architectural abundance and historical heritage. 

I have driven and bicycled along Washington Street many times but did not slow down to examine the houses. Here is a walk from south to north, starting where Lee Street comes in from the east above the Vicksburg High School ball fields. The addresses will count down as we progress north. Most of the photographs are from April of 2023. Click any picture to see more details.

Gator Stadium, Vicksburg High School, Lee Street

Let's start with the newly rebuilt and expanded Gator Stadium on Lee Street. The city did a nice job upgrading the fields and stands. There is a lot of pride in the ball teams. Everyone likes gators.

3507 Washington St. with original windows and stucco exterior

Vicksburg has a surprising number of houses with stucco exterior. Stucco was air tight, fire resistant, and accepted paint well. But the stucco was expensive to construct and challenging to repaint. I have seen stucco buildings being demolished and noted that the base of the walls was much thicker that the top near the rafters.

3501 Washington St.

The wide awnings were popular in the 1950s and 1960s. This cottage is also stucco-walled. It has a much simpler architecture than the green house to the south.

 

Time for a smoothie at 3407 Washington St.

Home with aluminum siding, 3113 Washington St.

Home with asbestos shingles (pre-1940s?), 3111 Washington St.

This little house has two original windows with multiple mullions. And it is clad with asbestos shingles. These were a durable and fireproof building material, popular in the mid-20th century. But mining and production was deadly for the workers.

3023 Washington St.

This cheerful little Craftsman cottage is freshly repaired and restored. It has its original wood siding and double-hung sash windows.  

Asbestos shingles, 3019 Washington St.

This house has diamond-shaped asbestos shingles above the porch. The vent just under the eaves may had been for an attic fan. The fence is nasty, a typical retrofit.

3011 Washington St.

3005 Washington St.

This little house was a dentist's office for some time, but it was neglected and unused when I took this photograph.  

Key Real Estate, 2903 Washington St.

2745 Washington St.

This cheerful cottage at 2745 has its asbestos shingle cladding and original windows. Because of Vicksburg's complicated terrain, many houses like this were perched above the street and had a flight of steps up to the front door. In other cases, the backs of the houses projected over gullies and were supported on wooden posts. I showed examples of this on Johnson Street. 

Victorian house, 2519 Washington St.

This is a handsome Victorian-era house. It has a modern roof, but the ornate vent/tower has been saved. The shingles above the bay window are original. These are hard to paint because of the many small surfaces that need scraping.

Shotgun house, 2433 Washington St.

Partly restored, 2427 Washington St. (Hasselblad 80mm lens)

Brick house, 2405 Washington St.

This was a nice late-1800s brick house with a steep roof. Some of the wall on the front appears to have been replaced. The roof is early 20th century asbestos with a recent coating of white roof mastic (plastic). The original roof was likely wood shingle. 

Coal sparks from chimneys and coal locomotives often caused fires when embers fell onto wood roofs. When asbestos shingles were developed in the 1920s, they immediately became popular for retrofitting old houses and for new construction. The shingles were  fireproof, lighter than stucco or brick, and quick and easy to install. On a roof, they did not weight more than the wood shakes, in contrast to slate or clay tile, which required a more robust frame. Therefore, many older houses were retrofitted with asbestos roofing. My 1925 garage had asbestos shingles on the sides and the roof, even though the main house was brick.

Commercial building, 2401 Washington St.

This former commercial building is at the corner of Washington and Speed Streets. It has been restored, possibly with an apartment in the second floor. At one time, a family probably operated a business on the ground floor and lived above. In many US cities, misguided zoning regulations made it illegal for residences to coincide with commercial businesses. As a result, business owners moved away and the structure of close-knit communities degraded.

2299 Washington St.

Cheerful blue paint, but it needs a bit of a touch-up. The low iron fence is possibly late 1800s.

2213 Washington St.

This ends our short walk along south Washington Street to look at some of the historical homes. I took most of these pictures with my Pentax Spotmatic F camera and 50mm ƒ/1.4 or 55mm ƒ/1.8 SMC Takumar lenses, hand-held, using Kodak Ektar 100 film. I scanned the negatives with a 35mm Plustek 7600i film scanner. The color profile in the Silverfast software is not quite right. However, the dilemma with color photography is how can you remember what was the "correct" color weeks or months later? Does it matter?  

I have photographed along Washington Street before. You can type "Washington" or "Vicksburg" in the search box to see older articles. Thank you all for walking with me. Next: more Vicksburg in other areas.

Good Stuff in the Attic: the Coca Cola Bottling Plant, Vicksburg

Dear readers, in my last article, I took photographs in the basement of the former Coca-Cola bottling plant on Washington Street in Vicksburg. The basement had some interesting heavy-duty machinery, patterns, shapes, pipes, and dust. How about the attic? The Open Market occupies the main floor of the old bottling factory and sells antiques and furnishings. I asked Lisa if I could photograph upstairs, and she graciously said I was free to go ahead. 

1977 payroll checks (with names removed)

I first went up to the attic with Mr. Cripps, the carpenter who rents the basement (see the previous article). Oh oh, trouble. A rooftop access trapdoor was open. A big egg was on the floor with some twigs and debris. A grumpy black vulture was on the roof beyond the trapdoor. We left the trapdoor and grumpy vulture alone. Later, some guys moved the egg and some straw out to the flat rood and closed the trapdoor. I hope a chick hatched successfully.

Roof ventilator turbines (minor fill flash to the right)

The attic is reasonably intact, and the the roof appears to be sound. This was a well-built structure. The attic floor is concrete, so no danger of falling through rotted flooring. 

Burroughs check-printing machine (1 sec. ƒ/8)

Burroughs check-printing machine platen detail (1 sec. ƒ/5.6)

This machine with a complicated keyboard almost surely printed the checks that you see in the first photograph. It may have also tabulated the amounts on some other media, maybe paper tape? Burroughs was an old-line American industrial concern that started in the 1880s with adding machines and branched into more sophisticated payroll systems. They moved into digital computers and developed main-frame systems in the 1960s, with emphasis on the banking sector. 

Gearbox of unknown purpose

The attic did not have too much material so I descended one floor to what was once the office space of the bottling plant.

The lavatory had some nice old porcelain steel sinks with dual water valves and high backsplash. Notice the slightly raised lip to reduce splashing over the sides. Compare with the typical modern bathroom sink, which is guaranteed to allow splash all over the vanity/floor and a soap film mess on the sheetrock behind. The worst examples of style over function are the goofy glass bowls sitting up on a platform or vanity. Really dumb. 

Radiator for hot water heat

Classic GE drop-in range with east-to-use button controls

At some time, likely the 1970s, the company built a kitchen on the second floor. The cabinets were generic, but the sink and range were matching avocado. Nice! The GE range had easy to use push button controls. The first button on the right is off, and the buttons to the left are for progressively higher temperatures. You can use them by touch and do not need reading glasses to see a programmable screen or LED display. Sometimes technology does not make machines easier to use. My former home in Massachusetts had a GE range with such buttons. Simple and reliable.

Former corner office? (Fuji X-E1 digital file converted to B&W)

Twist a Pepper Dr. Pepper bottle caps

These bottle caps contained numbers, possibly for some sort or promotion or prize. Twist enough caps from enough drinks and you get a prize (besides stomach rot).  

Finally, on the ground floor, a display of classic Coca-Cola bottles. I remember when these bottles contained 6.5 oz. And once upon a time, Coca-Cola was a treat that you drank possibly on Saturday afternoon or evening. A 6-pack lasted in the refrigerator all week. No one civilized drank soft drinks for breakfast or swilled it all day long in slurpy cups. How times have changed.... 

Good Stuff in the Basement: the Coca Cola Bottling Plant, Vicksburg

1938 Coca-Cola bottling plant, 2133 Washington Street, Vicksburg

Dear Readers, you likely know that I like old industrial sites with machinery, pipes, tubes, tanks, and other remnants of industry. The basement of the former Coca Cola bottling plant at 2133 Washington Street in Vicksburg, Mississippi, fits this criteria. This was the last bottling plant that the Biedenharn family built in Vicksburg. This sturdy 1938 brick industrial building stands at the corner of Washington Street and Bowman Street. 

Note, this is not the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum in downtown Vicksburg, where Coca-Cola was first bottled in 1894 (back when it still had coca in the secret ingredients). The family also operated another plant on Grove Street, later the site of the Vicksburg Steam Laundry. I have negatives of this building to scan one day (you know that fairy tale - one day....).

Here are some photographs of the basement from February of 2022. Mr. Anthony Cripps, a carpenter and cabinet maker, was renting the basement and generously let me photograph the old fittings and machines. He had run new fluorescent lights to illuminate the gloomy space. Most of the frames below had side-lighting from the dusty windows. Enjoy the shapes, patterns, and forms - industrial art.

Air compressor (50mm ƒ/4 Distagon lens, 1 sec. ƒ/11)

Compressor with a beer (80mm Planar-CB, 1 sec. ƒ/11.5)

Water-cooling jacket (80mm Planar with Proxar no. 1 close-up diopter)

Lubricator, manually cranked? (80mm Planar lens with Proxar no. 1 close-up diopter)

Back cap and bolt patters (80mm Planar-CB lens, 1 sec. ƒ/11)

GE electoral control box (80mm Planar-CB, ½ sec. ƒ/11)

Hot water boiler (1 sec. ƒ/11.5)

Fuse panel (4 sec. ƒ/11)

Among the hundreds of valves (1 sec. ƒ/5.6)

Stairway to upper shop (40 sec. ƒ/8 with minor fill flash on right)

The stairway was challenging. It was lit with a dim lightbulb above on the ceiling. My incident light meter measured 10 seconds at ƒ/8 on the center of the stairs. I used a 40 sec exposure to accommodate reciprocity of the film. I also added fill flash on the right, but it likely added very little light. 

Long-forgotten icebox (1 sec. ƒ/5.6½)

I took these photographs with my Hasselblad 501CM camera, most with the 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens, on Kodak Tri-X 400 film. I stabilized the camera on a tripod because of the long exposures. Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, developed the film. I scanned it with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner.   

Standby for the attic in the next article.