From the Archives: Tourist Pics of Vicksburg, Mississippi 1985-1992

While looking through a box of old negatives, I saw a film from my 1985 job-hunting trip. At the time, I lived in Houston, Texas - absolutely flat and topographically boring. But Vicksburg was an interesting place, with its history and its setting on the bluffs above the river. Not knowing if I would move here, I took snapshots around town. This will be a quick tour of some of the places a new resident might see. 

Driving from the east, many visitors first see the Big Muddy from the Mississippi Visitor Center. The scene is timeless - these photographs could be 1985 or 2019. I had driven here from the west and had therefore crossed on the I-20 bridge from Louisiana. In the late-1980s, the old bridge was still open to car traffic.

Walking on the Old Mississippi River Bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

By 1990, as I recall, the old bridge had been closed to traffic, but pedestrians could walk on it. This is a negative from a Kodak Stretch, which was a single-use (i.e., disposable) camera which purported to be a panorama format. That was deceptive: it had a 2-element, 25mm f/12 lens lens that projected onto a narrow strip of the 35mm frame, about 13×36 mm. However, I am surprised how well the Kodak Gold 200 film did with this crude lens. The APS film system also tried this fraud: the so-called panorama was just a thin strip in the middle of the frame. The entire frame was exposed but the processing lab automatically printed the thin strip.

Mississippi River north of the old bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

Mississippi River Bridges, Vicksburg, Fuji GW690II camera

The view from the overlook north of the Visitor Center is different now because the Ameristar Casino is in the foreground at the river's edge.

Mississippi River, Kodak VPS film, Rollei 35S camera, 40mm Sonnar lens

This is the bend in the Mississippi where the Yazoo Canal comes in from the north.

June 1991 view of former Vicksburg Hospital, Fujichrome 50, 4×5" Tachihara camera, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens

View north from Vicksburg Hospital, Ektar 25 film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm lens

In the 1980s, the old Vicksburg hospital was a concrete shell, standing where the police department is now located in a modern building. The view north to the City Hall and Post Office was rather boring. The architectural abomination on the right is now BancorpSouth Bank, but I am not sure what it was called in the 1980s.

Continuing north, this is a view of Clay Street at the intersection with Monroe. The Aeolian Apartments in the upper center were still rented as apartments in 1992.

This is Walnut Street looking north. I am not sure which of these houses are still extant.

Washington Street view south, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Grove Street from Washington Street, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Velchoff's Corner Restaurant & Miller's Still Lounge formerly occupied the building at the corner of Washington and Grove Streets (Summerlin and Summerlin 1995). I only ate there once and cannot remember when it closed. Look up Grove Street and you can see a car repair shop on the left. That building is gone, and again, I do not recall when it was demolished. The lot on the left was once occupied by the Masonic Temple, which was torn down in the mid- or late-1970s.

In front of the 61 Coffeehouse, view north, December 2018, Ilford Delta 100 film, Voigtlander Vito BL camera

61 Coffeeshop, 35 mm f/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, Pentax Spotmatic camera

Today, the corner building houses Attic Gallery and the 61 Coffeehouse. Daniel Boone runs 61 and provides the best coffee in town (except at my house....). And he employs charming coffee ladies. Look north along Washington Street and you see a building in the distance. Decades ago, this was a club and various other businesses.

Washington Street, Kodachrome 25 slide, Pentax Spotmatic camera, 150mm f/4 Super-Takumar lens

No. 913 Washington Street was once an automobile showroom. The second building, possibly a 7-Up bottling plant at one time, was unceremoniously demolished by City of Vicksburg in 2007.

Washington Street, Fujichrome 50 film, 4×5" B&J camera, 20" lens (presently the site of the M/V Mississippi on land)

The 1985 photographs are from Kodak VPS color negative film using a Rollei 35S camera. Its 40mm f/2.8 Sonnar lens was top quality for such a compact camera.

References

Summerlin, C. and Summerlin, V., 1995.  Traveling the Trace: A Complete Tour Guide to the Historic Natchez Trace from Nashville to Natchez. Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, Tennessee.

UPDATE 2021. Here is a photograph on the Mississippi River Bridge during the 2021 Bricks & Spokes bike ride. This is one of the few times that the bridge is open to the public. It is fun to bike over the river.

The Mystery School in Flora, Mississippi

In late December, my wife and I drove through Flora and explored some side streets. On NW 4th Street, we saw a formal Works Progress Administration-style building with eagles. Quick stop, check it out.

A modern sign stated Superintendant's Office. An older sign showed "Flora Middle School." But the building is clearly older than the era of middle schools. Back then, if students in the middle grades had their own building, they were in a junior high school. So how old is this building? Who was the architect? The building is unoccupied now, the main hall behind the door a dusty mess.

Come to find out, there is a mystery as to the exact age of this building. My friend, Suzassippi, wrote about the conflicting origins in her post in Preservation Mississippi. This may be the former high school from 1922. Or, it may be a 1937 building designed by the architect, Overstreet. The high school was torched by the night policeman. Maybe what we see if the remnant of the 3-floor high school, but only partially rebuilt with one floor remaining. Read Suzassippi's article for a much more in-depth review of this building.

This is the 1938 high school, but it looks like a different building to me. The eagles and door mantle are up on a second floor level. Were they moved down one level?

The eagles and medallions look like the decorative elements you see on many Works Progress Administration buildings around the United States. As written in Wikipedia, "the WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while developing infrastructure to support the current and future society. At its peak in 1938, it provided paid jobs for three million unemployed men and women, as well as youth in a separate division, the National Youth Administration." In older posts, I wrote about the National Youth gymnasium in Edwards. Regardless of the mystery surrounding the origin of this building in Flora, we see how infrastructure projects in the past helped set the stage for our current society.

These frames are digital images from a Moto G5 mobile phone. (Sorry, no film photographs this time.)

Return to the NYA Gymnasium, Edwards, Mississippi

NYA gymnasium, Fuji X-E1 digital file, 14mm Fujinon lens.

Kodak BW400CN film, Leica M2 camera, 50mm Summicron (Type 4) lens.

The National Youth Administration (NYA) gymnasium, formerly part of the Edwards High School, is continuing to deteriorate. The roof is beginning to fail, and in this climate, you know what that portends. I have photographed here before, but the building interests me, so I returned a couple of times in 2018 with different cameras. My friend, Suzassippi, provides some history of the gymnasium in her 2016 article in Preservation Mississippi.

Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 50mm Distagon lens.

The big old gymnasium smells wet. Part of the roof lets light through.

Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 501CM camera, 50mm Distagon lens.

The rooms in the rear, including the former shower room, is open to the sky. I took this photograph by placing the Hasselblad on a ledge and stopping the lens down to f/11 or f/16.

Kodak Ektar 25 film (expired), Rolleiflex 3.5E camera, 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens.

Black and white is great for these old buildings, but the infamous institutional green is worthy of recording for posterity. This grotesque green was (is still) found in thousands (millions?) of institutions around the United States. Yuck. The photograph above is from a roll of Kodak Ektar 25 that I bought on eBay. It was long-expired and almost ruined, but I managed to save part of the roll. Sadly, Ektar 25 is no more.

The Mississippi Delta 28: Tutwiler

The small town of Tutwiler is in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, northwest of Webb on U.S. 49E. The view from 49E is a bit discouraging - a closed garage, a fast food joint, not much else. I came through late one day in 2014 and had only a short time to look around.

Hancock Street was once the commercial center. Now it is pretty discouraging. These are the typical square-front commercial buildings from the early 20th century that you see in many Mississippi towns.

The railroad once came through Tutwiler, as with all Delta towns. The triangle-shaped building above  fit a triangle-shaped lot between Hancock and Front Streets. The tracks are still present and, I was surprised, not completely rusted. Some traffic must occasionally run here.

The funeral home that prepared Emmett Till's body in 1955 is on Hancock Street. Sadly, the back of the building has collapsed.

The side streets in town are also discouraging. It is hard to see these communities collapsing.

A political note: both of Mississippi's United State Senators support the border wall. So, they think $5 billion would be well-spent to build a wall along the Mexican border, but meanwhile towns in their own state (communities that are largely African-American) are rotting and collapsing. I wonder if $5 billion could improve the infrastructure, open public health clinics, repair bridges, clean trash, repair drinking water piping, and upgrade schools in the Mississippi Delta? For shame. A pox on you corrupt and cowardly politicians.

These images are from a Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera, with frame size set at 1:1 ratio.

Resting in Peace, Wintergreen Cemetery, Port Gibson, Mississippi (B&W film)

Wintergreen Cemetery of Port Gibson, Mississippi, resembles a secret garden, a place that time forgot, with giant cedar trees, lichen-encrusted wrought-iron fences, and gravestones with dates from the 19th century. According to the National Park Service, Wintergreen Cemetery was established in 1807 and is the final resting place for Confederate soldiers killed in the Battle of Port Gibson.

There are so many fascinating stones and family plots, but I could only make a quick selection. The light was soft with minor drizzle - perfect for Ilford Delta 100 black and white film.

Giant trees have grown here for decades. This one has been gone a long time, but many other trees were damaged or toppled by a tornado on Nov. 1, 2018. A lady from the cemetery management company told me they were waiting to bring in heavy-duty tree removal machinery to lift massive limbs. Stones were knocked down and need to be restored.

Many of the family plots are surrounded by beautiful wrought-iron fences cast in the shape of tree limbs or vines. This type of metalwork may have been a major industry in the 1800s.

The historic Jewish cemetery is a few blocks away. It is maintained by the same company that operates Wintergreen. A Catholic cemetery is nearby, but I was running out of daylight and did not explore.

These photographs are part of a test of my new 1957-vintage Voigtländer Vito BL camera with its wonderful 50mm f/3.5 Color-Skopar lens. I used a tripod for all frames with exposures in the range of ¼ or ½ sec. at an aperture of about ƒ/8.0. Some of the Vito cameras had a simpler shutter without the slow speeds, but this one has the full modern geometric progression of speeds (1 sec. to 1/300).

Click the link for more photographs of Port Gibson with the Vito BL.

Further Decay and Loss: Port Gibson, Mississippi (B&W film)

Background

Poor old Port Gibson. It is a historic town, with beautiful antebellum houses lining both sides of Church Street (which carries US 61 as it passes through town). The homes survived the Civil War because General Grant reportedly proclaimed the city to be "too beautiful to burn."

My 2016 post on Port Gibson showed some buildings that have since been lost. I had not been back since then for a careful visit, but on December 15 decided look around again. I had another motivation, to test a 1950s Voigtländer Vito BL camera that I had just bought. Some Ilford Delta 100 black and white film, a handsome old German camera, and an overcast, drizzly, gloomy day - what could be better? (Well, maybe a real coffee shop?)

I was appalled how bad the town looks. Some antebellum homes on Church Street are abandoned and are deteriorating, houses on side streets are ready to collapse, and empty lots have weeds and trash. How could this be happening?

North Port Gibson

Driving in from the north on US 61, the scene is peaceful and bucolic. This is rich farmland.

At the corner of US 61 and Grand Gulf Road, I saw a muddy driveway leading in to a farm. I asked some hunters if I could photograph their barn, and they responded that it was not their barn, so go right ahead. I assume most employees at Grand Gulf nuclear power plant zoom right by and miss the old barn and house on the right.

The northern outskirts of town, before you cross the Bayou Pierre, are horrifying. Stores are closed and the chain fast food stores purvey offal.

Little Bayou Pierre

Little Bayou Pierre, Feb. 18, 2017. Kodak Panatomic-X film (6×6), Rolleiflex 3.5E 75mm ƒ/3.5  Xenotar lens.

Little Bayou Pierre, Dec. 15, 2018. Ilford Delta 100 film (24×36mm), Vito BL, 50mm ƒ/3.5 Color-Skopar lens.

US 61 crosses Little Bayou Pierre. The water was high because of the large amount of rain that had fallen recently. Compare the 2017 photograph, when the sand bar was visible, with the 2018 high water scene.

Port Gibson

Look west from the north end of the US 61 bridge, and you can see cottages on Farmer Street.

This is sad: a handsome old mansion at 601 Church Street, unoccupied and on the path to deterioration.

A block east, an early-20th century cottage at 709 College Street has a collapsing roof. This was a nice home once.

On Marginal Street, across from the Jewish Cemetery, was a house with a dog.  He did not seem too interested in me, and after a half minute of barking, settled down.

On Jackson Street, an abandoned duplex is being engulfed with vines. A modern cruising motorcycle sat in the bushes. There was no obvious driveway with access, so weeds and brush had grown since it had been left there. What was it doing there? No one had removed it? These are 12 and 16 sec. exposures at ƒ/8. I used about 4 times the light meter reading to accommodate reciprocity failure.

Camera note

As I noted above, this was an experiment: I bought a 1957 Voigtlander Vito BL camera for $34 on eBay. It has a fixed 50mm ƒ/3.5 lens Color-Skopar lens (a Tessar derivative with a similar configuration of 4 lenses in 3 groups). The Vito is a strong German precision device from the end of the era when German camera manufacturers ruled the commercial market and just as the Japanese companies were surging forward.

Most of the exposures above are at ƒ/8 or so, where the lens would perform at its best. At first, the slow shutter speeds were definitely slow, but after some exercise, the leaf shutter settled down and sounds about right. The film pressure plate had some rust pips, so the first roll of film was badly scratched on the back (base) side. But I have cleaned the plate with a jewelry rouge cloth and an eraser. If need be, I will try some super-fine wet-dry sanding cloth. Stand by for more examples in the future from this little Vito camera. What do you readers think of the lens quality?