At this place: Washington Street and Crawford one hundred years apart

VICKSBURG, Miss. – The intersection of Washington Street and Crawford Street has drastically changed over the years. Over one hundred years ago, streetcars and Model T’s traveled down the brick streets that remain to this day.

The Vicksburg Electric Street Railway, which originally consisted of eight miles of track, opened on April 24, 1899 and provided residents with a new method of public transportation. Surprisingly, this wasn’t Vicksburg’s first mass transit system. The first streetcar system in Vicksburg was established during postwar reconstruction in the early 1870’s and consisted of two iron rails down the middle of the street with a small mule drawn streetcar.

The electric streetcar system went through a series of successive companies over the years, including the Vicksburg Light and Traction Company in 1912. At its peak, the company operated 22 cars on 11.5 miles of track. The V.L.&T. Co. came under the control of the Mississippi Power and Light Company in 1923, which continued to operate the streetcars until 1939. They were eventually replaced by the busses of the Vicksburg City Lines, Inc.

The first image is part of the Old Court House Museum’s J. Mack Moore collection, looking North on Washington Street near the Crawford Street intersection in the late 1920’s. The second image was taken by Chris Bolm in 2022.

Starting in 2022, Chris Bolm began to take images from the Old Court House Museum‘s photo collections and pinpoint their current locations and replicate the shot. Bolm named the series “Then and Now.”