Yazoo River/Centennial Cutoff

Yazoo River/Centennial Cutoff. Mississippi River Walk. , A) Yazoo River , Mile 437.1 AHP, The Yazoo River runs roughly parallel to the main river through the rich northwest Mississippi farm country known as the Delta. It was named for the Yazoo Nation, which occupied this area in the 1700s. Plantations grew up along the Yazoo's banks in the antebellum era, and the river became a busy thoroughfare. Small steamboats moved from Greenwood and Yazoo City to the river's mouth at Paw Paw Bend, several miles up the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, MS. After Memphis, TN and New Orleans, LA fell to the Union during the US Civil War, Confederate forces hid most of their surviving river fleet in the Yazoo. Later, they sunk many of the boats to prevent their capture. After the war, a dozen wrecked vessels were raised from the Yazoo to clear its channel. The Union gunboat, U.S.S. Cairo, lay buried in the river's bed for 100 years before it was raised. In 1903, the river was diverted south through the Port of Vicksburg and into the Mississippi River., B) Centennial Cutoff , Mile 437.5 AHP, On April 26, 1876, the Mississippi River accomplished what the Union Army never could. It broke through DeSoto Point and removed Vicksburg, MS from the river. Named for that year's American Centennial Celebration, Centennial Cutoff occurred two miles east of Grant's unsuccessful canal. DeSoto Point became an island, and at low water, the Vicksburg waterfront was blocked by a large sandbar. The docks were deserted for months at a time. Vicksburg languished for three decades until the Yazoo River was diverted into the old river bed, reopening the port.