Disappearing Architecture: Shotgun Shacks, Main Street, Vicksburg

According to Wikipedia,

The shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than 12 feet (3.5 m) wide, with doors at each end. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from the end of the American Civil War (1861–65), through to the 1920s. Alternate names include shotgun shack, shotgun hut, and shotgun cottage.

The examples in this essay are from Main Street, downtown Vicksburg.


Often, shotgun shacks were built by a developer in a cluster to house factory or farm workers. This group of five on Main Street is one example. Sometimes shotgun shacks were built on a double row facing a short, dead-end road known as a court. Several years ago, I spoke to an elderly gent who remembered when the courts were teeming with families. In the morning, a truck would come around and pick up the men to take them to farms. The women often did domestic jobs in town. In the evening, the trucks would return with the men and the families would get together again.


When I first moved to Vicksburg in the 1980s, there were still dozens of shotgun shacks in the older parts of town. As the years passed, many succumbed to fire or demolition. The house at 1402, the second photograph, was destroyed by arson on February 23, 2010, only a few weeks after I took the photograph.


In many ways, these little houses are not well suited to modern residential patterns. They are small, and most people want more space now. Because they have a lot of surface area in proportion to their volume, they are high maintenance. And with thin walls and post foundation, they are hard to heat in the winter and expensive to cool with air conditioners. Often they were rental units in low-income areas, and maintenance was neglected. In some places, two units have been joined with a hallway, but they still end up being high-maintenance homes.


In the early 20th century, there must have been hundreds of thousands of shotgun houses throughout the South. But we are losing these characteristic forms quickly. Near the Martin Luther King memorial in Atlanta, two or three have been restored and are on display. I was amused to see how many tourists were curious to see them. Then I realized that in the last few years, so many have disappeared, possibly many suburbanites have never seen one up close.


In the future, I'll post more photographs of shotgun houses from other neighborhoods. This group was photographed in January, 2010.

Railroad Depot in Mound, Louisiana

Mound is a farming community just north of Interstate 20 about seven miles west of the Mississippi River. During the early 20th century, a gent named George Yerger owned the land, which then was well-populated with tenant farmers. Like many farming centers, it once had a railroad depot, which served as the link with the outside world in an era before many people had motorcars.

The depot in Mound was a 1-story wood building with wide eaves to provide protection when material was loaded and unloaded from rail cars. The depot probably dates to the early 1900s, but a January 2005 article in the Vicksburg Post did not list an exact date. It had not been in use since before 1958.

The depot was unusual in that it still had White and Colored labels on the doors. Considering how common this practice was up through the 1960s, it is surprising how seldom you see signs like this now. Sadly, the depot is gone. I do not know who bought it and if it was moved or demolished.


The elegant little green shotgun shack is the only one left on the property. There were probably many in the early 1920s to house farm workers. A reader stated that this was used as a doctor's office by Dr. John Yerger in the early 1900s.

The clapboard farm building is a typical example for farms in the South.

All photographs taken on Kodak Ektar 25 film with a Rolleiflex 3.5F camera with 75mm f/3.5 Planar lens (5-element version), tripod-mounted. Ektar 25 was the finest resolution color negative film ever made. The negatives were scanned on a Noritsu professional system.

Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad Station, Saginaw, Michigan

Saginaw, Michigan, was once a prosperous timber and, later, manufacturing city in northeast Michigan. It was founded in 1816 as a trading post on the Saginaw River and grew rapidly throughout the 1800s. The first railroad to enter East Saginaw was the Flint and Pere Marquette, to be followed by other lines as the city's trade and industrial capacity increased. During the height of their power and industry, the F&PM Railroad built a magnificent brick station on Potter Street. I am not sure of the exact date or architect, but the size of the structure attest to the amount of passenger traffic in the 1880s. The detailing and quality construction also attest to a pride of construction and desire to make a lasting monument that we seldom see today. The Potter Street station was abandoned decades ago, and AMTRAK uses a different station in another part of town. Northeast Saginaw is blighted and no development plans have borne results. Sometime in the mid- to late-1990s, the station was gutted by fire. Several groups have attempted restoration, but the great building remains a gutted shell. Some of the towers and walls have been braced to prevent collapse. I fear this fine example of American industrial architecture will continue to deteriorate.

Our race to t6he bottom continues.

The Junius Ward Johnson YMCA, Vicksburg, Mississippi

In the early 1920s, Mrs. Fannie Vick Willis Ward donated funds to the Young Men's Christian Association to build a new YMCA facility in Vicksburg. The Junius Ward Johnson YMCA at 821 Clay Street was dedicated in 1923. Fannie, a modest and generous lady, sat in the audience. The new building, a handsome brick structure with a red clay roof, was located at the intersection of Clay and Monroe Streets in what was then the bustling heart of a thriving commercial and industrial city. Originally, the building had only three floors, but in 1925, workers removed the roof and added a fourth floor with 33 more residence rooms.

The new building was state-of the art at that time and featured steam radiator heat, bathrooms on each of the residence floors, a gymnasium/theater, and a swimming pool in the basement. The pool was tiled and of the most modern, sanitary construction according to standards of the 1920s.

When I moved to Vicksburg in the 1980s, the lower two floors were still regularly used for civic functions. The swimming pool was the only one in town with heat for winter use. I do not know the original configuration of the locker room. A ladies changing room had been added, but this would not have existed in the 1920s.

YMCA swimming pool in 2005 (Tri-X film, Tachihara 4×5" camera, 75mm ƒ/8 Super-Angulon lens)

On the 3rd and 4th floors, young gentlemen could rent a modest and clean room for weeks or months. This was a common practice in the early-mid-20th century and was less expensive than staying in a hotel. My father lived in YMCAs in the 1930s and 1940s in Providence, Boston, New York, and other cities for periods of weeks at a time.

Up through the 1970s, it was still common practice for single men newly-hired at the Waterways Experiment Station to live in the "Y" for months or sometimes years. They had to dine somewhere else, a service that was fulfilled by boarding houses in the vicinity. The normal pattern was for the young gent to eventually meet a young lady via church, sports, or club activity, get married, and then move to a suburban house. The gentleman in the photograph below is a former resident. He was a world-famous earthquake mechanics scientist in the Geotechnical Laboratory.

Another friend and coworker said when he moved to the "Y" in 1968, the rent was $30/month. For breakfast, many of the gents went to Crawley's Pool Hall, which put on a generous spread for $1. In the evening, they ate at the Glass Kitchen for a home-style $1 dinner or at other downtown eateries. Every night from 7-9 pm, a basketball game was open to anyone, after which the guys would go out to a bar for a beer. At that time, there were numerous bars downtown.

On our contemporary standards, the residence rooms are tiny, cramped monk's cells with a narrow bed and one electric outlet. The one tiny closet would barely hold our clothes, let alone all the other junk we drag around as part of our modern lifestyle. The rooms were not air-conditioned, but the doors had wood louvers. In hot weather, hall fans provided a constant breeze, and by leaving a window open, a breeze would keep the rooms bearable (on pre-1970s standards).

Residence room (Kodak Panatomic-X film, Rolleiflex 3.5E camera, 75mm Xenotar lens)

The Junius Ward residence floors ceased operation between 1978 and 1980. First, the YMCA closed the upper 33 rooms on the fourth floor, and then closed the third floor. This was the result of increasing competition from apartments around town, and possibly also a trend for YMCAs to convert to family-style recreation facilities. With lack of use, this part of the building deteriorated steadily thereafter.

Vicksburg YMCA moved to a new location in 2002 and sold their historic Clay Street building to a Nashville developer, who planned to convert the space to condominiums. The plans never materialized. The building remained unoccupied until about 2003 or 2004, when Keystone Ministries moved in. Pastor James Hartley kindly let me take photographs at that time. The ministry did some renovations, but the building needed too many repairs for them to be able to continue. Since about 2006, the building has been unused. Several potential developers have looked, but the cost of renovations has scared them off. Before it could be reoccupied, it would need fireproof stairs, major roof repair, and other significant upgrades. It languishes empty, slowly deteriorating.

Photography technical notes:

• Rectangle black white photographs: Taken in 2005 with Kodak Tri-X Professional film in a Tachihara 4x5 inch camera.
• Square black and white: Kodak Tri-X film and Panatomic-X in a Rolleiflex 3.5E camera (75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens)
• Square color: Kodak Ektar 25 Professional film in a Rolleiflex 3.5F camera (75mm ƒ/3.5 Planar lens)
• Rectangle color: Kodak Kodachrome 25 film in a Leica rangefinder camera

Click any photograph to enlarge it. Thank you to many Vicksburg friends who provided information and history.

UPDATE: November 2019, the old Y remains empty with no signs of activity or renovation.

Historical Hinds County Armory, Jackson, Mississippi

The historic Hinds County Armory is located on the State Fairgrounds in Jackson. Most people never see the building and it stands unused and neglected. Mississippi Heritage Trust describes this unusual building (http://www.mississippiheritage.com/list09.html):

"Completed in 1927 for the Mississippi National Guard, the Hinds County Armory is believed to be the oldest surviving 20th century armory in the state. It may be the only building from that era intentionally built as an armory. The National Guard used the building as a training facility for nearly 50 years. The armory was one of the primary mobilization sites for Mississippi troops who served in World War II. Many returning soldiers mustered out in the armory. It is one of the state’s finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture and one of the few secular buildings employing the style."

"The building was damaged in Jackson’s 1979 Easter Flood and has not been used since. The roof leaks, and the building continues to suffer from water damage and a lack of maintenance. Located on the state fairgrounds, the Mississippi Fair Commission has no current plans for the structure."


It was a handsome building, but as you can see from these photographs, it is in poor condition. The roof is collapsing and much of the wood flooring and stage has rotted. I toured one rainy day, and the water was pouring through the roof onto the debris below. It is sad or rather, disgusting; many servicemen must have memories of passing through this facility many years ago. What an outrage that the State will not take care of its property. And what happened to the $100,000 grant from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History back in 2002 to fix the roof? Who benefited from these funds?


Photographs taken on 12 December 2009 with an Olympus E-330 camera and 14-54 mm lens, tripod-mounted. I also took some Kodachrome slides with a Leica film camera.

Deconstruction, Johnson Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Johnson Street runs from Washington Street east down a hill steeply, turns right, and joins Lee Street near the Vicksburg High School football field. Like may other streets in town, it follows the crest of a loess ridge, the only practical pathway in a complicated topography. In the 1980s, this was a vibrant neighborhood with a church and tens of houses. Over the years, most of the shotgun shacks have been demolished, and today, I think only five houses are occupied. The Vicksburg Post recently printed a list of houses on the City's demolition list, which inspired me to record them. The first Johnson Street property on the list was 723, which is perched precariously over the gully. This was a common practice in the early 1900s. Because streets ran along the ridges, houses were built with the front door approximately at ground level while the rear of the house was supported with posts high over the gully below. Most of the condemned houses are pretty rough. The City demolishes them and places a lien on the owner to cover the cost. Over time, more and more lots are being cleared off - deconstruction. Some of my family members in other states and countries find it hard to believe that there is no demand for the land. The MB church has an engraved cornerstone which states that the congregation first organized in 1863. I met a gent in a nicely-painted house near the church who pointed out places where shotgun shacks formerly stood. No. 753 below is the last of this architectural style left on Johnson. Someone is repairing it. The following two houses, nos 715 and 751, are still occupied. The neighborhood was quiet and there were birds everywhere. I took these photographs on 31 January, 2010 with a Sony DSC-R1 digital camera, tripod-mounted. 

Update July 30, 2011: Here is a 2007 photograph of the cheerful blue house at 752 Johnson.

 

Lassiter Warehouse, Levee Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

In the late 1800s and up through the mid-20th century, Vicksburg was a bustling manufacturing and trading city. The waterfront was lined with warehouses, foundries, small factories, and processing plants. The black and white aerial photograph, taken in 1953 after the tornado, shows how downtown Vicksburg was entirely developed. (The post-tornado photograph was loaned by a generous coworker. The tornado will be the subject of a future essay).

By the time I moved to Vicksburg in the 1980s, many buildings had been torn down. Old-timers still speak of the inept redevelopment efforts in the 1970s that led to the destruction of so much of the city's heritage. Today numerous empty lots provide few clues to the commercial buildings, hotels, shops, and houses that once stood there.


The white brick building in the second photograph was the W. W. Lassiter Warehouse at 1308 Levee Street, also known as the Surplus City Building. From the Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation (http://www.preservevicksburg.org/):

"Built about 1907, this is the last remaining warehouse along the city's waterfront in an area that was lined with brick warehouses of every description, and was historically the largest and most important wholesaling district in Mississippi. When the Lassiter Warehouse was built, it was one of 50 warehouses and commercial buildings on the Vicksburg commercial waterfront. Original roof trusses, brick arches between rooms, windows, doors, fireplaces, cypress floors, and coal chutes remain, although some elements have been hidden by new materials."



Photographs 3 and 4 show the wood supports and massive bearing walls in the basement. The cypress posts were reasonably resistant to termites, and the floor joists were probably heart pine. The high pitch content also usually resisted termites. We rarely see construction of this quality today.

Sadly, the building was partly dismantled in 2008. The bricks were recycled.

May 2012 update: The shell of the warehouse remains, but there is no action on dismantling the remainder. The casino is also bankrupt and closed, so this part of Levee Street is pretty forlorn.