Old Depot Museum wins award for Best Museum in Vicksburg

Dave Benway, curator of the Old Depot Museum, has announced the Vicksburg Award Program has chosen the Old Depot Museum as the Best Museum in Vicksburg.

“Each year, the Vicksburg Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category,” the Vicksburg Awards Program said in a release. “These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Vicksburg area a great place to live, work and play.”

The company added that it uses “various sources of information that are gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category.”

“All the museums in Vicksburg represent something different, that’s the unique part,” Benway said. “We’ve got a melting pot of museums.”

The Old Depot Museum started out as a transportation museum, he explained, then expanded when the battlefield diorama was added to memorialize the Vicksburg National Military Park. “While the park has been closed, people have been coming here to see what it looks like,” he said.

The Civil War diorama at the Old Depot Museum (Photo by David Day)

The museum is housed in the old train depot for the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad built in the early 1900s. It underwent a $2.4 million renovation in 2010 and 2011, but the reopening was delayed by the Great Mississippi River Flood of 2011. The museum reopened almost a full year later on Memorial Day 2012.

Since then, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History recognized the museum “for maintaining the history of Vicksburg,” Benway said.

It has recently reopened after being shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions.