It's still tough times along the Mississippi. Many towns were hit with a one-two-three-four-five punch and have never recovered. Using slave labor, the towns were prosperous lively communities with theaters and shopping when cotton was King. Then yellow fever, cholera, the Civil War battles, eroding loess soil (poor land management), and finally the boll weevil dealt death blows. Loess (lo'es) is a very fine-grained porous soil which becomes liquid when saturated and erodes easily. During the plantation era, all land was cleared allowing the loess to erode into deep crevasses. Really deep! Some of these crevasses seem to be 75 feet deep.
Rocky Creek on the Natchez Trace Parkway had 2600 people in 1860. There is little sign of it now. We find it hard to believe that we wouldn't be able to see signs of roads or metal debris. A church and cemetary still exist and two cement-lined metal safes. That's all.
Grand Gulf is another ghost town along the Mississippi. We camped here where Civil War batteries were dug and shots were fired to ships on the river. In it's heyday, Grand Gulf had a train line that brought cotton to the wharves. 20 steamships landed per week. Then came the run of bad luck for the community: yellow fever epidemic, a tornado, 3 steamships exploded at their wharves, and then the Mississippi flooded and ate away the entire business area. The fighting in the Civil War destroyed what little was left of the town.
The Ruins of Windsor. Windsor was built by a cotton plantation owner in 1861. The cost for this mansion was $175,000 at that time. Big money! The mansion had the plantation's offices in the "above ground" basement (that is how it was described), two living floors, an indoor attached kitchen, and bathrooms with water fed from rain-supplied barrels in the attic.
Windsor survived the Civil War (also known as the War Between the States down here) intact but was destroyed in 1890 when an accidental fire broke out. All that is left are 23 of the original 29 45' columns. (to appreciate the height of these columns see Dean standing in the center of the picture.) The stately columns project an eerie and beautiful sight.
