Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/485

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and furniture factories are actively at work. Other enterprises are slowly building up, and the natural and economic advantages of the city for manufactures are becoming more apparent.

The public buildings of Vicksburg—Court-House, Post Office, churches, schoolhouses, and hotels—are typical and creditable. The Court-House, situated on one of the highest eminences, towers above the surrounding buildings and is pleasing to the eye from every point of view. The tradition is that it was planned and designed by a slave belonging to the contractor who built it. The United States building is handsome and commodious. The city abounds in churches. It is provided with an excellent system of waterworks and electric street-railway service. The system recently adopted of free education for both races has from time to time been so enlarged as to its curriculum of studies and improved as to its methods, that it has superseded private schools, except an educational establishment for both sexes under the control of the Roman Catholic Church.

Vicksburg has been the home of several of the State's ablest men, who have proved large