Because of Vicksburg's complicated loess topography, a number of roads wind along the ridges and drop into valleys. Some are dead-end and almost unknown except to local residents. Union Avenue is one of these. This is not the Union Ave. in the Vicksburg Military Park that tourists visit but rather a residential road that runs from Sherman Avenue to the edge of the Park.
I did not know Union Ave. was here until I saw the address of a house on the city's demolition list. The house, at 205, is beyond saving.
Neat, modest homes line the road as it proceeds south along the ridge. I saw this snow-covered Chevrolet Bel Aire and asked a fellow if I could take its portrait. He asked me if I wanted to buy it (tempting...).
Union Ave drops down into a hollow and parallels the Military Park. Oddly, this is Warren County and not City of Vicksburg. I was surprised to see a cluster of houses in the hollow. I recall seeing them years ago from the Park. The house in the photograph above, no. 710, is now deserted but when I saw it before, the resident there raised pigs.
The next house, 714, is also deserted. Neither look too bad. This is definitely a quiet, out-of-the-way place to live, another one of Vicksburg's hidden valleys.
Photographs taken with a Sony DSC-R1 digital camera.
