Warren County

The History of the Warren County Welcome Center
Grand Opening July, 1981      
 
Warren County is the sixth facility in a program to provide official Welcome Centers on all interstate highways leading into Mississippi.  The Centers are constructed and maintained by the Mississippi State Highway Department and operated by the Mississippi Development Authority.  Employees of the Centers extend Southern hospitality to Mississippi’s visitors, serving beverages and giving
Information about places of interest in the state.
 
The Warren County Center is of particular interest because it is located on one of  Mississippi’s most historic sites. Native Indians, explorers, and the early settlers all passed this bluff. Flatboats, keel boats, and the elegant steamboats stopped here.  During the Civil War, Admiral Farragut shelled Vicksburg batteries past this point.  Two cannons form the Union Gunboat Benton were entrenched in the battery at the end of the observation bridge.  A shell from the Confederate’s South Fort exploded there on July 1, 1863, killing one and wounding four others.  General Grant’s canal lies hidden beneath trees and bushes under the approach to the new bridge in Louisiana.
 
In order to locate the Welcome Center on this historic bluff, the slope to the river had to be stabilized.  850 stone columns were built into the bluff itself, using 23,000 tons of washed gravel.  The reinforced earth walls around the building are the first such project ever to be constructed in Mississippi.  Total cost of the foundation $2 million dollars.
 
This Center is an investment in Mississippi’s economic growth through tourism.

Elmerree Bradley, Supervisor
Warren County Welcome Center
4210 Washington Street
Vicksburg, Mississippi 39180
601.638.4269
Fax: 601.638.4201
warren@mississippi.org