Incorporated in 1826, Vicksburg was created from the community of Walnut Hills and named after Newitt Vick, a Protestant minister and conscientious objector to the War of 1776. During the American Civil War, Vicksburg was the site of the Battle of Vicksburg, an important battle in which the Union (American Civil War)Union defeated the Confederate States of AmericaConfederacy and gained control of the entire Mississippi River. The battle, also known as the Siege of Vicksburg, consisted of a long siege brought about by the fact that the city is located on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and thus was largely impregnable to invaders. The capture of Vicksburg and the simultaneous defeat of Robert E. LeeLee at Battle of GettysburgGettysburg marked the turning point in the American Civil War. Because the city fell on July 4, 1863, the people of the city did not celebrate Independence Day (United States)Independence Day for the next 81 years, until 1944. Because of the city's location on the Mississippi River, its reputation in the nineteenth century often rested on the river's prodigious steamboat traffic. Between 1881 and 1894, the Anchor Line, a prominent steamboat company operating on the Mississippi River from 1859 to 1898, operated a steamboat called the City of Vicksburg, named for the city. In 1876 a Mississippi River flood cut off the large meander flowing past Vicksburg leaving access to the new channel limited. The United States Army Corps of Engineers diverted the Yazoo River in 1903 into the old, shallowing channel to rejuvenate the waterfront. Railroad access to the west was by transfer steamers and ferry barges until a combination railroad and highway bridge was built in 1929. This is the only Mississippi River rail crossing between Baton Rouge and Memphis, TennesseeMemphis and the only highway crossing between Natchez and Greenville, MississippiGreenville. Interstate 20 bridged the River in 1969 and freight rail traffic still crosses by the old bridge. North-South transportation links are by the Mississippi River and U.S. Highway 61. On March 1212 March 1894, the popular soft drink Coca-Cola was bottled for the first time in Vicksburg by Joseph Biedenharn, a local confectioneryconfectionist. Today, surviving nineteenth-century Biedenharn soda bottles are prized by collectors of Coca-Cola memorabilia. Also, Biedenharn's old store still survives as a tourist attraction. Willie Dixon was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 1, 1915. Muddy Waters was born http://maps.google.com/maps?q Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicksburg%2C_Mississippi