Greenville to Vicksburg: Introduction

Miles 537 - 437 Greenville to Vicksburg Greenville, Mississippi When you refill your water bottles in Greenville you will notice the tea-colored waters coming out of any city taps. Not cause for alarm, you are about to imbibe in the waters that gave birth to luminaries Shelby Foote and T-Model Ford. Ask locals and you might be told “it’s in the water,” meaning the root cause of its literary and musical heritage. Storied Greenville is the home of writers, blues musicians, painters, as well as tow companies, tow pilots, boat stores, river stores, and river rats galore. It’s the most river-oriented city in the Mississippi Delta due to its history and strategic location. In the boom/bust cycle of river towns the Mississippi River left Greenville high and dry when it jumped channel across the Tarpley Bend in 1933. This after suffering the ground zero trauma of the infamous Mound’s Crevasse during the 1927 Flood. Poor Greenville tottered along through the glory days of king cotton and the high plantation era separated from the river. Its Pulitzer Prize winning paper the Delta Democrat took the high road along the many bumps through integration and the Civil Rights era. In 1963 its status as a river town was rejuvenated with the dredging of the old channel of the river. This created the Greenville Harbor and Lake Ferguson out of the sludgy shallow remains of the old Bachelor’s Bend. Modern tow companies and supporting services followed the opening of the harbor. But if you paddle the other way, up the lake away from the river, you can make a short daytrip around north end of the lake lined by houses on one side and cypresses on the other. At high water there is no end to the exploring you can do, but at low water it’s limited to a quick turnaround lined by muddy banks. Today Greenville makes the obvious start place or end place for any river trips. It is the best resupply place for any long-distance paddlers in between Helena and Vicksburg. Pull out at Warfield Point where you can find hot showers and good camping with river views. Or paddle 5 miles up the slackwater harbor and make your landing downtown. Downtown lacks any grocery store, but is full of the highlights of Delta civilization and its rich river culture such as the Metcalf Public Library, the 1927 Flood Museum, the William Alexander Percy Memorial, and some cafes and bars along Walnut Street where you might catch some live blues. Unfortunately one of the world’s greatest bookstores, the McCormick Book Inn, closed the last page in its long history as the preeminent literary center of the region. Doe’s Eat Place is an often frequented steak house, but you can also find Chinese, Mexican, Lebanese, Italian, and many more selections throughout the city. The Greenville Inn and Suites is the obvious best choice.

for any paddlers wanting a night in a soft bed: it is the first building you will come to leaving the harbor and inhabits the historic Greenville Levee Board building. As with any landings and cities along the Lower Miss, be sure to secure your vessel, station someone as guard, hide it well, or portage it into town with you. Never leave any valuables in your canoe or kayak if you are walking into town. Greenville Accommodations and Restaurants: Warfield Point Park 296 Warfield Point Rd. Greenville, MS 38701 662-335-7275 www.warfieldpointpark.com Greenville Inn & Suites 211 S Walnut St (662) 332-6900 Walnut Street Bar 128 S Walnut St (662) 378-2254 Doe's Eat Place 502 Nelson St (662) 334-3315 doeseatplace.com Shotgun House BBQ 223 Central St (662) 334-9685 William Alexander Percy Memorial 341 Main St (662) 335-2331 washington.lib.ms.us Metcalf Public Library 315 Martin Luther King Dr 662-335-0212 Nearby Blues Points of Interest: B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center 400 Second Street Indianola, MS 38751 662-887-9539

www.bbkingmuseum.org Highway 61 Blues Museum 307 North Broad Street Leland, MS 38756 866-285-7646 662-686-7646 www.highway61blues.com Greenville Blues Festivals Blues loving paddlers can combine the best of both worlds, the best lives blues and the biggest river in North America, by coordinating your expedition with one of the annual festivals near Greenville. The Delta Blues Festival is on the third Saturday of September, and is the largest one-day blues festival in the entire Mississippi Delta; think Woodstock meets the blues. This gritty celebration takes place in the middle of a sprawling field that’s hot & dusty in dry seasons and muddy in wet. Highway 61 Blues Festival in nearby Leland falls on the first Saturday in June. Be sure to visit the Highway 61 Blues Museum (open Monday - Saturday 10am-5pm) for the story of 150 blues musicians who lived within a 100-mile radius. Indianola celebrates its most famous son with the annual BB King Homecoming Festival 4th of July weekend. While there you’ll want to see the newly completed BB King Museum, open every day of the week, closed Mondays in the winter. The Mighty Mississippi Music Festival will have its first annual occurrence (October 4-6, 2013) that will welcome paddlers to Greenville from its perch right on the edge of the river at Warfield Point Park. Highway 61 Blues Festival: 1st Saturday in June BB King Homecoming Festival: 4th of July Saturday Delta Blues & Heritage Festival: 3rd Saturday in September Mighty Mississippi Music Festival, 1st weekend in October Greenville Boat Ramp Huge open concrete ramp laid out over the levee opposite downtown Greenville. Best Ramp in the entire Mississippi Delta due to its unlimited space for launching. Always reaches water regardless of river level. Good place to park your vehicle, even for overnight trips. Be sure to hide any valuables, and park in the vicinity of the casino (and make sure to park well above the waterline in any times of a rising river!). Greenville Harbor Canoeists and kayakers starting out from the downtown landing in the Greenville Harbor face a four-and-a-half mile flat water paddle to reach the flowing water of the Mississippi River. If you have plenty of time, it makes for an educational tour of big industry and tow companies headquartered along the way, such as Brent Towing, Vickers Towing, ACBL/American Commercial Barge Lines, Ergon Towing, Mississippi Marine Corp,

Greenville Shipbuilding, Waterways Marine Barge Cleaning. You can see towboats under construction, tows being repaired, tows in drydock, tows in the water, barges being cleaned, and fleets of barges you paddle below and gawk at their size. It’s a smorgasboard of tows, but you’ll also pass granaries such as Cargill Rice and the omnipresent Bunge Corp, and the towering Mississippi Power & Light Company. However if time is an issue or the wind is out of the South, you might opt for a put-in at Warfield Point.