Historic Steel Bridge, Vicksburg National Military Park

Long-term Vicksburg residents may remember that Confederate Avenue in the Vicksburg National Military Park crossed Old Jackson Road on a steel arch bridge.  The bridge and four similar structures were built in 1905 and used for many years, but by the 1970s, the other four had been replaced with modern concrete bridges.  By the mid-1980s, the steel bridge over Jackson Road was still open to pedestrians, but the road had been rerouted over a modern concrete span parallel to and west of the historic bridge.  Sometime in the early-1990s, the bridge was closed to pedestrians, but it remained unused in place, a relic of sound early 20th century engineering and construction.

This is the view of the historic bridge from the new concrete span. As you can see, it spanned quite a deep valley with a road and creek below.

This is a postcard from the archives of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Sometime in the late-1990s, one of the footings on the south side washed away, leaving the bridge standing on only three footings. According to the Vicksburg Post (June 20, 2002), National Park Service officials concluded that the bridge was structurally in imminent danger of failure and that repairs would be too expensive. Jackson Road was closed because of the fear that the bridge would fall.

I examined the footings with a friend who is a mechanical engineer, and his opinion was that if the bridge was standing strong on three legs, there was no imminent failure mode. The footing could have been repaired with piles or a concrete pad. Regardless, the decision was made to raze the beautiful old bridge. This photograph shows one of the footings on the north side of the valley.

Here is the still-intact arch entering the brush on the south side. You can see the dangling footing in the lower center of the frame. The demolition job was contracted to Riverside Construction of Vicksburg, and the workmen literally pulled down the span using a bulldozer and dump trucks on June 20, 2002. The steel was cut up and taken away for recycling.

This is how we lose our architectural and engineering heritage: no one cares, and authorities take the cheap and brainless way out. For shame that this happened in a National Park.

Photographs taken with Kodak Tri-X film on a 4x5-inch Tachihara camera, using 180 mm and 75 mm lenses. I had to carry tripod and camera down Jackson road on my bicycle because it was closed to traffic.

Jackson Street Branch YMCA, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Long-time residents of Vicksburg will remember that the YMCA once had two branches in town. The main facility was the handsome brick building at 821 Clay Street (see the 2010 article for interior photographs). A prominent local citizen, Mrs. Junius Ward, provided funds for this structure as a memorial to her husband.  But this was the era of segregation, so Mrs. Ward generously provided funds for a separate YMCA building on Jackson Street for African-American men. The Jackson Street Branch opened in 1924 and remained in service until the early 1990s. It was demolished in 1995 to make way for a new community center (the formal address is 923 Walnut Street).

As the photographs show, the Jackson Street branch was a handsome and formal 2-floor brick building with "1924" engraved in the panel above the entry door. It contained some residence rooms like the ones in the Clay Street branch.

I never went inside while it was in operation, but took photographs when it was being demolished.

Interior view of auditorium, taken during demolition.  Leica M3 with 135mm Tele-Elmar lens.

Photograph taken with a Leica M3 and the 8-element 35 mm f/2 Summicron-RF lens.

The gymnasium once occupied a big section of the building. Up through the 1970s, the famous Red Tops held rehearsals every Monday evening at the Jackson Street Y, possibly in this space. As you can see, construction was substantial. I often wonder why the wood beams and bricks were not recycled rather than just crushed and trucked away.

Finally, here is another interesting structure, a remnant of the architecture that once dominated Vicksburg. This Queen Anne-style building is at 916 Walnut Street. In 1992, it was used by the Elks Club, but another fraternal organization occupies it now. As of 2013, it is on the City's condemned list. Notice the roof, covered with zinc or galvanized roof shingles.

The first photograph was taken with a Pentax Spotmatic camera with 150 mm Super-Takumar lens on Kodachrome 25 film. Black and white photographs taken with a Leica M3 rangefinder camera with 35mm f/2.0 Summicron-RF lens (the famous first generation 8-element version) and 135mm Tele-Elmar lens on Kodak Tri-X film. The square frames were taken with a Rolleiflex 3.5E camera on Kodak VPS HC film (another great emulsion that is now discontinued).

Bridges of Redwood, Yazoo River, Mississippi

For decades, drivers on Highway 61 (the Blues Highway) had to cross the Yazoo River at Redwood, Mississippi, on a handsome 1950-vintage steel cantilever bridge. Unfortunately, I do not have a photograph of the old bridge when intact. The old bridge was elegant in a mid-20th century industrial style, but no longer suited contemporary transportation needs. The two lanes were narrower than current standards, the bridge required expensive painting, and clearance was too low for some tall trucks.  Therefore, Mississippi Department of Transport (MDOT) built a modern concrete 4-lane bridge over the Yazoo a short distance south of the old structure. Rather than disassemble the old bridge, it was dropped in place using explosives on July 1, 2009. According to WJTV television, "The bridge was blown up at 7:50 a.m. and the blast was fueled by packets of explosives placed at strategic points by contractor Key Constructors. Boats on the Yazoo were halted as crews cleared the waterway." I missed the demolition because it was not announced to the public beforehand, but I drove to the site a few days later.

This photograph shows the east approach with some of the structure still standing.

This is the center span lying in the river. It must have taken several days to remove the debris, during which barge traffic would have been blocked. The Yazoo is a Federal navigation project, but commercial tonnage is low and the channel is seldom dredged.

A short distance to the south, out of sight of the highway bridge, is this abandoned railroad swing bridge. It has been unused since at least the 1980s. A few years ago, I read that these types of bridges were slowly disappearing from the US landscape, but one is still here.

The tracks and ties were removed a long time ago from the west side of the bridge. This is an example of the immense engineering infrastructure built by the railroads in the early 20th century. For many years, the best and brightest engineering students went to work for railroads because they offered the most challenging careers.

Finally, a slightly off-topic photograph. This is the auditorium of the Radwood elementary school on May 7, 2011, when the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers were at record flood levels. The school built temporary levees to keep out the water, and books, furniture, and other materials were moved to the auditorium, which was a bit higher than the other rooms. Fortunately, the flood waters did not reach the building and no equipment was damaged.

As a final example of bridges and railroad engineering, here is a monumental lift bridge on the Cuyahoga River, in Cleveland, Ohio. I have never seen this bridge in use, and it is rusting and deteriorating. But look at its massive construction.  I hope it will preserved as a mechanical or civil engineering monument. Also, look to the lower left and you can see a swing bridge similar to the one at Redwood.

Most photographs taken with an Olympus E-330 digital camera. The two sepia frames are from a Sony DSC-W7 compact camera.

Demolition of Shelter 3 at the Waterways Experiment Station, May 2012 Update

Some readers may remember a 2011 post showing  the interior of Waves Shelter 3 (Building 3100) at the Waterways Experiment Station, in Vicksburg, Mississippi.


After electrical work, removal of some trailers, and rerouting optical cables, the demolition is finally underway. I am surprised what a small work crew can accomplish the project. One or two workers use cutting torches to cut bolts, and the diesel machines literally pull down big sections of roof and girders.


Dealing with the debris is harder work. The metal is cut with big pincers, and the material is placed in large open dump trucks, whence it is taken off station. This makes me realize what an immense amount of junk and waste we generate in our modern society. An old wooden house eventually collapses and rots, but this steel must be actively recycled (melted and reused) or else it will linger in landfills for centuries.

Photographs taken with a Fujifilm F31fd digital camera.

Shotgun Shacks on Grammar Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Grammar Street is another one of those semi-hidden streets in Vicksburg that most people do not know exist unless they live there or have a specific reason to visit. There are two parts to Grammar. The east section is approximately parallel to Harrison Street and runs from Court Street to the Stout's Bayou. There is no bridge, but on the opposite side, Grammar Street picks up again and proceeds uphill to the west to Martha Street. See the circled areas on the map.
The photograph above shows the opening to Grammar street when standing on Court Street. This little house is still present but has been painted since I took the photograph in 2000.
The east part of Grammar was once a typical Southern "court," lined with identical shotgun shacks. The white house being engulfed with trees is no. 1318 and has been demolished.
Proceeding west, we come to nos. 1314 and 1312. Obviously, 1312 was a mess and ready to be demolished.
The next two were nos. 1310 and 1308. The latter is still standing.
No. 1306 had the faded green paint.
No. 1304 was already gone in the early 2000s, when I took these photographs, but 1302 was present. In the 2003 photograph, 1302 was pretty rough looking, but by 2006, it had been painted and had flowers on the front porch.
No. 1300 was the last house before you reach Stout's Bayou. I am not sure if it ever floods on this part of the street. (Update January 2021: All of these little cottages have been demolished.)
Across the street is a cottage, which may be no. 1301. All in all, this was a pretty rough street. Around the corner on First North, I met a lady who grew up on Grammar. She said she remembered when a bus would come to pick up workers to go to the cotton fields. She thought that was 30 years ago, but I think it must have been at least a decade earlier because by 1980, most cotton harvesting was mechanized.
Across the bayou to the west, the neighborhood was a bit higher grade and older, possibly late 1800s. The tall handsome house is no. 1228, and is still standing. (Update January 2021: this house is gone)
No. 1213 is more modern. Vicksburg has more hidden streets like this steeped in history.

Film note: These are all scans of Kodachrome 25 transparency film. The first photograph was taken with a Minox 35 compact camera, the rest with Leica rangefinders using Leica Summicron lenses. Kodachrome 25 was the finest-grain transparency film, and it really shone when you used the best prime focal length lenses (like Leica) to record fine details. But, its slow speed almost insured that you had to use a tripod. Some photographers disliked Kodachrome, but it had a unique color palette and rewarded deliberate workers. It also had excellent archival properties, and the colors remain vivid for decades.

Scanning Note: I scanned these on a Nikon Coolscan 4000 at 3000 dpi and saved them as TIFF files. It is difficult to scan K25, especially if the frames contain dark areas. With a Nikon unit, you have to manually increase the gain significantly. Also, the color balance is difficult to correct at dusk. Unlike modern digital camera, color film recorded the color as it was. If the day was overcast and the light was cool (blue), the pictures looked blue. Commercial photographers used color-correcting filters, but most documentary photographers did not bother.

Follow-up: Demolition of WWII-era building at the Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, Mississippi

In the last essay, I showed some photographs of Building 2025, one of the "temporary" structures erected in World War II at the Waterways Experiment Station. I am glad I stopped to record what was left because on July 8, 2011, the backhoe started tearing it down.

It does not take long for a machine to tear down wood walls. But the floor was well made; the tractors drove on it without it collapsing.

This very interesting manifold was part of the water sprinkler system. Plumbing was well made in those days, made to last.

Finally, I found a room with thousands of 35 mm slides strewn about on the floor. They had once been labeled and neatly stored in sleeves or Kodak Carousel trays. Is this the fate of most old photographs? We cherish 100-year-old photographs of people and cities, but age and rarity have enhanced their value. Once photography became a common hobby in the post-war era, people took millions or billions of snapshots and dumped the negatives and prints in boxes. Possibly only the original photographer considered the work valuable. I often read on photography forums how a digital photographer backs up all his files on a RAID machine and sends a spare backup to safe storage somewhere. And if those machines fail, will it really matter? He takes 10,000 photographs a year and all of them are works of art? It is a guy thing. Will his family ever really look through his tens of thousands of files? The same with this old building. Does it really matter that it was torn down?)

(Photographs taken with a Panasonic G1 camera. The scene with the slides was an 8-second exposure.)

Update, July 13, 2011. The demolition continues.

During the 1980s and 1990s, this part of Building 2025 was the supply depot, where you could pick up stationery supplies, field books, some tools, work gloves, and similar small items. Back then, pens and pencils had "U.S. Government" or "Federal" written on them. They even stocked fountain pens and ink (was it red ink?). At the end of the summer, students would raid the supplies and take off to college crates of diskettes and notebooks. Then they closed the depot, with the idea that it was cheaper to send a government employee to Office Max to buy supplies. So much for convenience or saving money.

Deconstruction, Hannah Avenue, Vicksburg

Hannah Avenue is another one of Vicksburg's out-of-the-way streets that few people visit except for local residents. It runs perpendicular to Military Avenue, about one half mile east of Marcus Bottom. I was drawn there by one of the houses on the city's demolition list, number 2631.

This modest house is typical of many late-1930s or 1940s wood-frame units built as single-family dwellings. It was in bad condition with some of the roof caved-in.

Despite its present poor condition, I could tell that it had been built with good materials, and it had served its purpose for six decades. The fireplace probably had a coal stove insert originally.

Like many of these demolition homes I have photographed, this one looked like it had been evacuated in a hurry. Does the child who once owned this little teddy bear miss it? I have also seen abandoned high school yearbooks, bank statements, photographs, and other personal mementos.

Across the street was a classic narrow shotgun house. This one is occupied and has new brick foundation posts. I expect there were more shotgun houses in years past, possibly right next to the one in the photograph.

All photographs taken with a Sony DSC-R1 camera, tripod-mounted.