Touring the Former Flagship of the COE (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

April 3, 2024

We got a lot of rain in Vicksburg, MS on March 25 (Monday). We stayed home and played with Nox until she was tired out, which happens very quickly these days. After all, she is 15 years old.

The weather cleared up by Tuesday (March 26), so we headed to historic downtown Vicksburg to tour the COE Museum and the Mississippi aka the Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi River Museum.

We walked around outside of the Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi Museum (LMRM). They have a large scale map of the section of the Mississippi River by Vicksburg. You are allowed to walk on the model and see it up close.

The Mississippi IV is huge. We were impressed just seeing her from outside.

After walking around outside, we headed inside the LMRM. It was free to tour the museum and boat!!!

The museum covered much of the Mississippi River Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers history. It also covered floods and other natural disasters.

From the museum, we crossed a bridge to the upper deck of the Mississippi.

We entered the boat and enjoyed walking around it. The bathrooms were bigger than the one we have in the RV!

I was delighted to see the bridge and then to see the engineering control room. The boat could be controlled from the engineering control room as long as communications worked between the bridge and the engineering control room. This set up made me think of the Enterprise from “Star Trek”. I could almost hear Scotty telling Kirk that he had control of the ship!

After wondering about the boat, we headed back inside the museum and walked past the information about the wildlife that lives besides the river and in it. They even had a fish tank.