The barrel of a cannon sits on the grassy hill near the The Battlefield Inn Thursday as Lamar Roberts, left, and Warner Byrum carry away shovels after breaking ground for the Vicksburg Battlefield Museum off North Frontage Road. (Melanie DuncanThe Vicksburg Post)

By April, a new North Frontage Road building in the shape of a Civil War gunboat will house two attractions moving from downtown, their owners said.

The new museum will also have other items for visitors to see and be much closer to the entrance of Vicksburg’s main attraction, the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Moving are the Gray and Blue Naval Museum from 1102 Washington St., which features model ships and a Vicksburg Civil War battleground diorama, and The Vanishing Glory from 717 Clay St., a narrated slide show on the city’s siege.

“We just expect that from (Interstate 20) we’re going to get more traffic there,” Gray and Blue owner Lamar Roberts said before a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday.

The Vanishing Glory’s pictures, which have been upgraded with digital technology and may someday be animated, are to be shown in a 65-seat theater, said Warner Byrum who owns the production shown to tour groups and the land where the new museum is being built. Byrum also owns the adjacent Battlefield Inn and has been a vocal supporter of more aggressive tourism development in Vicksburg.

“It tells the story of how people dressed, how they lived,” he said of the production. “It has people reading from letters and diaries.” The new building, which is to have about 4,700 square feet, will be able to handle three busloads of people at once: one each in its theater, museum and gift shop, Roberts said.

“We’ll be open whenever people want to come through,” he said, referring to groups that may want to arrange night tours of the museum.

During 2002, the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau engaged in an effort to bring more of the national park’s approximately 1 million visitors per year into the downtown area. Signs now mark a “scenic tour.” But Byrum and Roberts have opted to go out where the tourists are. The new building will share a parking lot with the Battlefield Inn, and the model of it on display Thursday had eight flagpoles around its main entrance bearing the flags that have flown over Vicksburg. The building may eventually have a pool of water around two side sides, to make it look more like an ironclad in drydock, said Abraham Lincoln Fowler Jr., the Vicksburg contractor who had the idea for the design.

“If it’s going to be about the Civil War, what’s better than a Civil War ironclad?” Fowler said.

The Vanishing Glory dates to 1981 when it was created by Ken and Dottie Smith. Its former home was once the Strand Theater across Clay from Trustmark National Bank’s main office. It was later purchased by Dr. Paul Ballard, a Vicksburg dentist, and then by Byrum who has closed it due to lack of customers.

Roberts, retired from a career in manufacturing, opened Gray and Blue Naval Museum in April 1993. It now has about 165 boats in addition to its 230-square-foot diorama.

The planned moves will leave two empty spaces within a block of Washington Street. New Vicksburg Main Street Program economic development coordinator Bob Ward said he plans to help get them filled.

“I would love to find somebody that would like to have an old-timey movie theater,” he said of The Vanishing Glory’s former home.

As downtown attractions are moving closer to the national park, the park is expanding into downtown. Congress has approved acquisition of the Crawford Street home that served as headquarters for Confederate Gen. John C. Pemberton, the city’s defending general. The National Park Service plans to use the home as an interpretive site to show how civilians lived in 1863.

Main Street Program executive director Rosalie Theobald said she was sorry to see the businesses leave downtown but pleased they would remain in Vicksburg.

“I think we’ll have a downtown advocate out there,” she said of Roberts in his new location.

Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau director Lenore Barkley was also optimistic.

“We hate to lose them both downtown, but maybe this will be better for everybody,” she said. “We’ve always encouraged visitors to see the Vanishing Glory as the first thing they do. It gives a history lesson in a nutshell.”