Just because they are not around anymore doesn’t make them less real – not to Gordon Cotton anyway. &#8220They” are the people of history, and, when Cotton tells the stories, &#8220they” might be generals, but are more likely to be townsfolk.

&#8220I love history, always have,” said Cotton, who, at 70, ends his tenure Thursday as curator and director of the Old Court House Museum-Eva W. Davis Memorial. &#8220It’s a good thing, too, because I’m awful at math.”

His decision to retire coincides with his 30th anniversary as an employee of the Vicksburg and Warren County Historical Society, which has operated the museum since the doors opened on June 3, 1948.

It also coincides with the selection by the board of George C. &#8220Bubba” Bolm, 54, to become the museum’s fifth director.

&#8220I always said I wouldn’t leave until I could find someone who could do this job,” Cotton said. &#8220Bubba can do it, probably much better.”

The museum is a non-profit supported by admissions, gift shop sales and dues of historical society members. It also has income from events such as the Fall Flea Market, Confederate Christmas Ball and last weekend’s Guns of Vicksburg sporting clay event. There are no allocations from local governments – which makes keeping the doors open every day of the year except Christmas Day something of a challenge.

&#8220Miss Eva said we shouldn’t always be going around asking for things,” Cotton said in one of his frequent references to the museum’s founder. &#8220She said if we do a good job, we’ll get what we need.”

Cotton said he first met Mrs. Davis when he was very young. &#8220I knew her from the time I knew anybody, not for her museum work, but as a friend of our family. One of my earliest memories is how clear to me as a child it was that she was a special person.”

The story of the museum’s beginnings is essential to the dedication it has been shown by employees and historical society members. With completion of the &#8220new” courthouse across Cherry Street in the early 1940s, the 1860 structure, though columned and stately, became a relic. Unofficial plans were in the works to raze it, shave down the terraced hill on which it sits and convert it to a parking lot.

That’s when Mrs. Davis lobbied the board of supervisors for a key and permission to try to bring new life to the old building as a repository of local records and to establish displays for visitors in the rooms that once housed the tax collector, the chancery clerk, judges and myriad other county officers.

She worked, often alone, cleaning and clearing and gathering and organizing – writing progress notes for The Vicksburg Post – and interest grew. Today, although some call it a Civil War museum due to the significance of 1862 and 1863 in Vicksburg, the museum’s artifacts date to pre-Columbian finds related to Native Americans well up through the last century and Warren County’s role in World War II. As many as 40,000 visitors have toured it in some years.

Also, its research library contains hundreds of volumes related to the South, and its records collections are used for primary source information by scholars around the world.

A few years ago, not scholars, but a television crew from Japan showed up to interview Cotton on the 100th anniversary of President Theodore &#8220Teddy” Roosevelt’s refusal to shoot a bear that had been corralled to guarantee he had a successful hunt north of Vicksburg. The incident gave rise to a newspaper cartoon and, in turn, to millions of teddy bears.

Cotton told his visitors the hunt was at Smedes Plantation, which no longer exists, and that the precise spot of the non-confrontation was not recorded and not known. But the crew, through broken English, insisted film was needed of where Roosevelt did not shoot a bear. So Cotton loaded them up, drove up U.S. 61 into the Delta, stopped and stood on the side of a soybean field. This is a place, he told the camera confidently, where in 1902 President Roosevelt did not shoot a bear.

Other missions have had a more consequential result. Earlier this year, for example, Cotton discovered a tombstone lost to the years at Cedar Hill Cemetery. When found, the sunken stone affirmed the resting place of a Revolutionary War soldier, one of very few known to have died and been buried here in what was then a fledgling community.

Cotton, a Warren County native who has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history, taught school for several years before starting work for The Vicksburg Post in 1970 as a reporter, feature writer, photographer and editor of the Sunday edition.

He was a board member of the historical society in 1976 and attending a meeting when Dan Lee, then superintendent of the Vicksburg National Military Park, suggested Cotton would be a good candidate for the vacant museum directorship.

&#8220Another member said, ‘Gordon wouldn’t be interested,’ I don’t think,” and I said, &#8220Oh yes I would.”

They came to terms quickly, Cotton said, with his stipulation that he not be required to wear a coat and tie.

It may have just seemed spur-of-the-moment.

&#8220I took it because I was supposed to take it,” Cotton said while reflecting on all the people and influences that preceded the offer. &#8220I think it was ordained. Not everything in life is ordained, but some things are.”

Keeping the museum going is not a desk job. Cotton’s duties include everything from research and correspondence to creating and dusting displays to cleaning and stocking the restrooms in former cistern houses on the lawn.

&#8220One thing I realized early on was that the job presented the opportunity to work outdoors at times,” he said. &#8220I’ve always liked that, so it’s good that I’ve been able to work on the lawn and gardens.”

The historical society has an advisory council that meets monthly and a board of directors that meets when needed – not often during Cotton’s tenure.

Otherwise, a staff of four or five keeps the doors open, greeting visitors, answering questions and selling souvenirs. Among gift shop items are 12 of Cotton’s books on local history. He’s written more, but some are out of print.

All are on local history – some focusing on the determination and character of those who came before, and some focused on foibles and frailties.

&#8220I like local history,” he said. &#8220I live here, but I don’t care if I lived somewhere else, I think I would like the local history. It gives a sense of place, a context for our lives. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to make the same mistakes again, but maybe we’ll avoid a few.”

Anecdotes and insights fill his books. &#8220I like the personalities behind the headlines. Not all little-known or little-noticed people changed the course of events, but maybe some of them did,” he said.

Just two examples would be John Leland, colonist and minister, and Gen. William Booth. Few know their names, but Leland is the person who insisted on the separation of church and state established in the First Amendment and Booth was the founder of The Salvation Army.

Cotton also likes to observe the most instructive part of history is that &#8220human nature doesn’t change.” Cite any development or trend and it’s happened before. &#8220Maybe there’s a different stage and maybe it’s a different play, but the plot is always the same.”

His early influences include Miss Dorothy Hullum at Jefferson Davis Academy, the public school nearest his home on Campbell Swamp Road, where he was born and continues to live today. &#8220Other teachers in later years – Mrs. Elzene Bell, Mrs. Gertrude Hullum, Dr. Martha Bigelow – all whetted and fed my appetite for history.”

As a junior college student, he was apprenticed to Mary Cain, the clear-spoken editor of the Summit Sun. She was known for hitting the campaign trail and running for governor when few women would have dared be so bold, and she helped Cotton form his world view as well as his writing skills, he said.

Since joining the museum, he’s associated with many noted historians – Dr. Lynda Crist of Rice University, a leading scholar on Jefferson Davis; the late Shelby Foote of Memphis, author of the definitive three-volume history of the Civil War; and contemporary researchers Dr. Ian Brown, Dr. Chris Waldrep and Dr. Chris Morris.

&#8220I hesitate to list any because there have been so many,” Cotton said. &#8220I have made some very dear friends among people who’ve walked in the front door here.”

His first objective in retirement, he said, &#8220is not to come to work at 6:30 every morning.” Other pursuits will include time at a cabin he purchased in the Ozarks near Mountain View, Ark., two years ago.

And, probably, more research and writing.

&#8220I’ve got stacks of ‘started’ projects,” he said. &#8220Perhaps I’ll have the time to revisit those.”