Non-Civil War Vicksburg – April 8, 2016

Our last day in Vicksburg was spent doing things that had nothing to do with the Civil War beginning with lunch at The Tomato Place.  Check out these pictures first.

Inside the Tomato Place

It appears this was a produce stand, primarily tomatoes, in the beginning and over the years evolved into one of the best locally known lunch places in town.  We looked at each other when we first drove up because it looked a little worse than the picture we were shown by Mary (our octogenarian friend) but all the cars parked had Mississippi plates and there were already plenty of cars at 11:45 a.m.

You walk in and stand on line to order, then they find you with your order because there are no more than 15 places to sit.  We decided to keep it simple and ordered fried catfish Po Boys with a thick slice of ripe tomato and something called Mississippi Fever sauce which was a sweet pepper sauce that Jim even put on the catfish and enjoyed.

Catfish Po Boy sandwich

After lunch we drove to the Coca-Cola Bottling Museum where the first cokes were bottled 8 years after the formula was invented by the pharmacist in Atlanta.  I was struck by how small and manual the operation was.  Each bottle was filled with the right amount of syrup and then filled with carbonated water.  The person doing the work had to wear a metal mesh mask because some of the bottles exploded when filled with the carbonated water.  Then they were capped and put into a case.  It took one-half of a day to bottle one day’s supply of coke bottles.

From there we traveled to the Old Court House Museum filled top to bottom, approximately 7 rooms on two floors, with artifacts and memorabilia from the Civil War and post-Civil War periods.  The large court room is still intact with the spectator’s benches, Judges bench and witness box as well as a beautiful ornate iron railing separating the judge and attorneys from the spectators.

We had a light dinner at Walnut Hill Restaurant, another local recommendation, but found the seafood gumbo and fried oysters (me) and grilled chicken salad and vegetable beef soup (Jim) to be less than spectacular.  We should have gone back to 10 South for dinner!

The next morning we left early and drove a little over 400 miles to get to our next stop in Sanger, Texas (outside Dallas).  A Long day without much excitement.