Warren County residents will get their first look at the interior of the Catfish Row Museum this fall.

The museum will be housed in the old Monte Carlo Building at the corner of Washington and Jackson streets.

Linda Fondren, the museum’s executive director, said the first phase of the project, called “Defining the Cultural Diversity of Catfish Row,” will be available to the public during a soft opening of the museum.

The title of the first phase is based on writer David Cohn’s definition of the region from his memoir, “The Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg.”

“Phase 1 will be a series of events available to the general public that will include hands-on workshops, curatorial events, and panel discussions,” Fondren said.

The opening exhibit, called “Local Voices” will introduce the African American, Lebanese, Jewish, Greek and Chinese communities that make up the Vicksburg story of yesterday and today and will be the core exhibit for additional museum experiences.

The opening, she said, “Is to let the people know what’s to come, what’s all going to be in the museum, so people need a sneak peek of what the museum is all about.”

The exact date of the opening has not been set.

Fondren said work on the museum, which is funded in part by a $500,000 state grant, began in January. Presently, she said, work is underway on the new storefront, air conditioning and heating, restroom facilities, and a museum lab and pop-up exhibition space. It is expected to be completed by the end of July.

Fondren said the purpose of the museum lab and pop-up exhibition space is to begin the content development and artifact collection phase for the Catfish Row Museum.

“Since the museum will ultimately be a community-engaged museum, one that will involve local community members in its design and development, we will need the help of the local community’s knowledge, expertise, and resources to accomplish this,” she said.

The plan is to present a collaborative approach to exploring the shared history of Vicksburg with the museum lab space providing opportunities for visitors to scan, copy and donate documents such as letters, recipes, and historic photographs, and to donate, care for, and write text for artifacts and other items. The lab also offers the opportunity to record oral history interviews.

“The museum lab and pop-up exhibitions will occur the first and third Saturdays of every month,” Fondren said, adding she hopes the exhibitions will provide an extensive collection of stories and artifacts that will contribute to the community’s shared history and encourage participation in further designing, planning and implementing museum exhibits.

“The collected oral histories will cover many aspects of life in Vicksburg, including life and work along the Mississippi River, music, religion, cuisine and art,” she said.

Besides the exhibits, plans for the museum include a small cafe that Fondren hopes will develop a relationship with the city’s nearby farmers’ market “and have some very healthy meals and teach people to know how to cook and what nutrition is all about.”

The Monte Carlo Building has its own unique history.

It was built in 1911 for Christian and Burroughs Co., which built wagons and carriages. It was then used by a car dealership, which stayed in the building until the late 1920s, and later became a 7-Up bottling plant until the 1960s.

The building was turned into a nightclub owned jointly by Joe Farris and Jesse Smith and called the Monte Carlo Club, which gained notoriety as a dance hall that booked regional and national rhythm and blues acts in the 1970s and early ’80s.

The building deteriorated, and in 2007 the city razed the north section of the building, which had been damaged during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The Fondrens bought the 107-year-old building from Vicksburg resident Malcolm Carson in December 2016 for $240,000.

Carson bought the building in 2010 from Farris, a Vicksburg native who moved from California and owned the building for 40 years.

Since purchasing the building, Fodren has met with experts in the fields of planning and developing museums, meeting with experts on southern culture from the University of Mississippi and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and talking with local residents.

“This has been going on for quite a while, but everything has been moving in a really good direction,” she said. “It’s just that these things take time and I’m happy we’ve had the time, because it helped us make better decisions by going out in the community, going out in the state of Mississippi to visit other museums to make sure this museum is a success.”