History of Vicksburg

It has been claimed that the residents of Vicksburg did not celebrate the national holiday of 4th of July again until 1945 but this is inaccurate. Large Fourth of July celebrations were being held by 1907, and informal celebrations took place before that.

Because of the city's location on the Mississippi River, in the 19th century it built an extensive trade from the river's prodigious steamboat traffic. It shipped cotton coming to it from surrounding counties and was a major trading city. In 1874, in Reconstruction-era violence, whites attacked a black Republican political gathering in Vicksburg. An estimated 300 blacks were killed, and the Republican governor Adelbert Ames left the state temporarily. Election cycles had been accompanied by increasing violence from white insurgents in the state as the Democrats worked openly to suppress black voting. In 1875, they succeeded in regaining control of the state legislature.

In 1876 a Mississippi River flood cut off the large meander flowing past Vicksburg, leaving limited access to the new channel. The city's economy suffered greatly. Between 1881 and 1894, the Anchor Line, a prominent steamboat company on the Mississippi River from 1859 to 1898, operated a steamboat called the City of Vicksburg.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers diverted the Yazoo River in 1903 into the old, shallowing channel to rejuvenate the waterfront. Railroad access to the west was by transfer steamers and ferry barges until a combination railroad-highway bridge was built in 1929. This is the only Mississippi River rail crossing between Baton Rouge and Memphis. It is the only highway crossing between Natchez and Greenville.

Interstate 20 bridged the river after 1973. Freight rail traffic still crosses via the old bridge