Day 3: Jackson

Jackson MS

We are slowing it down today by enjoying a leisurely morning in the hotel room before eating the complimentary breakfast at 9:00. It was about 10:00 when we left the hotel for the antebellum Old Capitol, which survived the burning of Jackson by Union troops in 1863, but later fell into disrepair and was eventually restored and made a museum. The flags are at half staff because of the shooting of two police officers in Hattiesburg the weekend before.

 This is the old House chamber where the delegates to the Mississippi secession convention voted to secede in January 1861. Voting for the post-Civil War state constitutions also occurred in this chamber.

Adjacent to the museum is the obligatory monument to the fallen Confederate soldiers.

We then drove north through the sleepy downtown to the amazingly ornate "new" Mississippi State Capitol, built at the turn of the 20th century in the Beaux-Arts style of marble, stained glass, and other architectural doo-dads for $1 million that the state collected from the Illinois Central Railroad for back taxes. It looks like they spent every penny. A highlight of the building is the antique 1903 hand-operated Otis elevator run by a blind operator who spoke not a word. The dome of the capitol is now being restored.

We ate our sandwiches on a bench in the shade of an oak tree you can see in the picture above. At 12:40, we left for a tour of the home of novelist and short story writer Eudora Welty, who died in 2001. The house is almost as she left it with books stacked on tables, sofas, and chairs. She had made arrangements to donate it to the state upon her death and her family donated its contents.

Jackson MS to Vicksburg MS

At 2:00, we got on the road again and headed west on I-20 and entered Vicksburg less than an hour later. The hotel is right off the interstate and across the street from the Vicksburg National Military Park which we will tour tomorrow. After a couple of hours of rest, we went to the lobby for complimentary beer and hors d'oeurves, if nuts, cheese, chips and a snack mix rise to that status. A late afternoon storm came up. Early to bed.