Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg, the county seat of Warren County, is located 40 miles west of Jackson and 20-30 miles northwest of the Natchez Trace Parkway.
Vicksburg, incorporated in 1825, was named after Newitt Vick, a Methodist minister and conscientious objector of the Revolution. During the American Civil War, it was site of the Siege of Vicksburg, a significant event in which the Union gained control of the entire Mississippi River. The 47-day siege was intended to starve the city into submission, for its location atop a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River proved impregnable to assault by federal troops.
On March 12, 1894, the popular soft drink Coca-Cola was bottled for the first time in Vicksburg by Joseph Biedenharn, a local confectioner. Today, surviving nineteenth-century Biedenharn soda bottles are prized by collectors of Coca-Cola memorabilia, and his candy store is the Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum.
The population was 26,407 at the 2000 census.
