Views of Vicksburg

This is the gate at the entry to Vicksburg National Military Park.

The impressive Illinois monument is the largest of the 1300 memorials/monuments in the park.

Cannons snuggled together on the countryside.

The remains of the USS Cairo.

Downtown Vicksburg and the building where Coke was first bottled. I loved the sign on the wall that equates Coca Cola to purity! Hmm......I don't think that is the case anymore.

Thanks for joining us again in our travels across American. We stopped in Vicksburg, Mississippi and got another history lesson....or, as our daughter Lisa put it: "just a review of our childhood"! Could be, although I sure don't remember the battle here very clearly or coming to Arizona in a covered wagon. Not only were there Civil war battles in the hillside, they also fought the war on the Yazoo river! The iron clad USS Cairo was the first armed vessel in history to be sunk by a mine submerged in the Yazoo. Those Confederate soldiers were pretty smart, even though they lost Vicksburg in the end. The USS Cairo was in the mud and silt of the river for 90 years before it was recovered.

One other interesting thing we found out was that Vicksburg was the place that Coca Cola was first bottled (one bottle at a time) in 1894 by the Biedenharn Candy Company. We toured the small Coca Cola museum and ended up having an ice cream there.