The Beautiful American Lotus

Vicksburg was once famous for the beautiful American Lotus water lilies that grew in great profusion on Sunset Lake. Sight-seers thronged to the area each summer, with hundreds arriving in town on specially chartered excursion trains, just to see the spectacle of the cream-colored, saucer-sized blossoms, which opened over a period of about three weeks in August. They diminished over the years, blossoming for the last time in 1930. Their origin and reason(s) for disappearance is still a mystery.

First Image- Lotus Lilies: This photo post card was published by drug store owner O. B. Dunning from a hand-colored photograph taken by local photographer William Koons. It is postmarked 1912.

Second Image- Another view of the Sunset Lake lotus lilies, postmarked 1909.  The photograph is by Dr. C. R. Scott whose office was above O. B. Dunnings & Sons’ drug store.

Vicksburg was once famous for the beautiful American Lotus water lilies.