Mississippi River Basin Model - continuing decay, November 2015

The former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Mississippi Basin Model in Buddy Butts Park in Jackson, Mississippi, remains abandoned and neglected by the City of Jackson. As you might expect, the site is more and more overgrown and vandalized than ever. On this visit, my friends and I explored some of the buildings, which are gradually collapsing.

The first building, next to the water tower, was a pump house partly built over a sump. The catwalk is still intact despite the roof collapsing.

 A steel shed once contained air compressors and other machinery of unknown purpose.

This building once contained the Stevens chart recorders and may have been an executive control center for the model. I showed photographs of the old Stevens recorders in my 2010 article, but all have disappeared now.

These shelves once contained rolls of paper with holes representing some sort of coding (octal?). The flow of water via electrical or pneumatically-actuated valves was controlled by these paper strip charts.

This is one of the inflow controllers. I wish it was intact and wish I knew how it worked.

My friends and I came across another building that we had not explored before.

This building contained the remains of two huge air compressors. I am still not sure exactly how the compressed air was used, but it had something to do with the pneumatic controllers and the chart strip recorders.

This viewing platform was once used by tourists who visited the site. In the 1960s, the Basin Model was a popular tourist attraction (as was the Waterways Experiment Station before 9/11). I have read that many of the former German prisoners of war who worked on the site in World War II came to see the functioning model.

The model is a peaceful place on a quiet Autumn afternoon. Visit it soon before the buildings and concrete terrain elements are completely overgrown.

For some earlier articles, please click the links:

2010

2010 July

2010 December

2013

Photographs taken with a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera with a Fujinon 27mm f/2.8 lens. Raw files processed in PhotoNinja software.

UPDATE JULY 2017:  A volunteer organization has been formed to clean and clear the site and develop it as an education/interpretive center. Readers interested in participating in the cleanup work, please contact: 

Sarah McEwen

President, Friends of the Mississippi River Basin Model

601-376-9131

Twitter: @MSRiverBasinMod

Facebook: @FriendsofMississippiRiverBasin Model

Abandoned Fuel Terminal in Vicksburg

Just below Washington Street at 600 Depot Street is an abandoned fuel oil distributor. The yellow pages show this this was once Moak Petroleum Products , Inc., but I do not know dates of operation or who owns the site now. The gate is open and you can walk right in. The grounds reek of gasoline or solvent. Some tank or pipe is leaking. I wonder if the place would ignite?

This is the scene looking east. Washington Street is up on the bluff.

Looking north,you see the former Mississippi Hardware in the distance (now closed and subject of a future post).

The shed in the first picture became a dumping ground for records and files from the company. I saw liquor bottles, so vagrants are using the building. The roof looks intact, so it is dry on a wet night, a good place for a homeless person, except for the fumes.

This building is secure and un-vandalized.

The pumps are the old-fashioned type with rotating numbers rather than modern LCD displays. I did not see ethanol stickers. (Editorial note: ethanol - another stupid politically-mandated mess that did not save energy nor make us energy-independent, and had serious and damaging environmental consequences. Also, it ruins older cars.)

Photographs taken with a tripod-mounted FujiFilm X-E1 digital camera, raw files processed with PhotoNinja software to convert to black and white.