The Hotel Vicksburg was added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1979. In 1993 it was also added as a contributing building in the US National Register Uptown Vicksburg Historic District in downtown Vicksburg MS.
From the Hotel Vicksburg Nomination Form: (
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"STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
Termed a "modest skyscraper" upon its completion, the Hotel Vicksburg remains the tallest building in Vicksburg. Its exterior is well detailed in the Colonial Revival style, while its interior, which is almost totally intact, combines Colonial Revival with Art Deco motifs
Construction of the hotel in 1928 was funded almost entirely with local capital and represented not only the growth and progress of Vicksburg in that decade, but also the city planning efforts of local businessmen. The demolition in 1972 of two earlier hotels, the Washington and the Pacific House, left the Hotel Vicksburg the only large-scale building in the downtown area originally constructed for use as a hotel.
By 1928 several projects were underway or had been completed which were expected to increase traffic through Vicksburg. The recently completed Yazoo River bridge provided the last link in the north-south route of the scenic highway along the Mississippi River, and the Vicksburg bridge soon to span the Mississippi would make the city an important crossing point on the shortest highway route across the continent. Realizing the investment potential of a new hotel and the importance of such a facility to the growth and prosperity of the city, realtor John S. Hoggatt, cotton dealer K. D. Wells, banker E. S. Butt, and merchant Edgar Leyens formed the Magnolia Hotel Company. They sold stock to "nearly every prominent citizen of the Hill City" ("Hotel Vicksburg,H Jackson [Miss.] Daily News, Rotogravure section, June 30, 1929, p. 1), hired architects, and leased the building for twenty years to the Austin-Atkins Hotel Company.
Designed by the Chicago firm of H. L. Stevens and Company, architects and engineers who built only hotels, the building was first planned to be eight stories but was enlarged during construction to eleven. Completed at a cost of $550,000, the hotel's reinforced concrete construction was said to make the structure "practically everlasting" and "nearly fireproof" ("New Hotel Opens July 3 and 4," p. 5).
Acclaimed as "one of the most modernly equipped hotels in the South" ("Many Attend Brilliant Formal Opening of the New Vicksburg Hostelry," Vicksburg Evening Post, July 4, 1929, p. 10), the building boasted a vacuum cleaning plant with a two-sweeper capacity and outlets and attachments on each floor, and a refrigeration system which supplied ice water to every room.
Much attention was given to the interior, each public space being decorated in a different motif: the main lobby in the "manner of an English baronial hall of the Georgian period ("Guide for Inspection of the Hotel Vicksburg," Vicksburg: Van Norman-Downey-Yoste Co., 1929); the Coral Room "in the spirit of French art moderne" (Ibid.); the Monroe Room, a small dining room, in the “American Colonial style" (Ibid.); and the Florentine Grill Room in the Italian Renaissance mode.
Two Chicago artists were hired to enrich various wall spaces. Hubert Ropp executed three paintings depicting local subjects: the Pageantry of the New South, an allegorical work representing various aspects of Southern industry; the Siege of Vicksburg, a map of operations during the Civil War; and the Battle of the Crater, a scene in the siege of Vicksburg which portrayed the Courthouse and other city landmarks.
(The last painting is now missing.) Chicago sculptor Carl M. Linnear executed two plaster panels for the Coral Room ballroom. Entitled the Rhapsodic Dance, they are excellent examples of Art Deco.
In constant use as a hotel until 1975, the building was purchased from the Magnolia Hotel Company by the present owner in 1978.
Renovation and conversion of the hotel into luxury apartments is now [1979 -- BMB] in progress."