Mile 437.0 - Centennial Cutoff
437 Centennial Cutoff
In the high water of 1876 the river sliced across the narrow yoke of land at the base of Centennial Bend, and isolated Vicksburg from the big river, threatening to kill its economy. This natural shift must have come as a demoralizing blow to the “Citadel of the South.” A little over one decade earlier the Confederacy was forced to surrender on Independence Day. It was as if the big river was punishing the city. And boy it must have smarted that this happened during the Centennial year. Vicksburg refused to celebrate our nation’s holiday until well into the next century.
Marion Braggs gives a detailed account of the Cut-Off and its consequences: “At 2:10 p.m., April 26, 1876, the Lower Mississippi took one last bite out of a narrow neck of land in front of the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and went surging across DeSoto Point, Louisiana. The river had done what General U. S. Grant and more than 50,000 soldiers had failed to do in 1863. The old town of Vicksburg was removed from the Mississippi.
The cutoff that occurred while the nation was celebrating its 100th Anniversary came as no surprise to residents of the area. For many years, eminent civil and military engineers had been examining the narrow neck of land in front of the city and predicting that the river would soon cut through it.
“Before the cutoff occurred, many people had argued that a cutoff would have little if any effect on Vicksburg. The old bend would remain navigable, they said, and the town would therefore retain its waterfront. The city's docks would continue to be as busy as ever. Others predicted gloomily that a cutoff would cause the old bend to fill with silt, that the point opposite would recede, and that Vicksburg would be left on a shallow oxbow lake, two miles from any potential steamboat landing.
“The pessimists were correct. Vicksburg had lost its waterfront. At low water, a vast expanse of sand and mud prevented steamers from entering the river's old bed, and the docks in front of the city were silent and deserted for months at a time. Vicksburg would stagnate for a quarter of a century before the Army Corps of Engineers would build a canal that would restore the town to its former status as a river port.”