From staff reports

More details of how $4.6 million in federal stimulus funds will be spent by the Vicksburg National Military Park and at Alcorn State University were in a Tuesday news release from U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

About $1.7 million for the Civil War park was initially announced in April, earmarked for restoring the interior of the historic Shirley House — the only structure within the park’s boundaries that survived the siege and battle of 1863.

That project is “close to kicking off,” said park Superintendent R. Michael Madell, with contracts about to be awarded.

The other major expenditure — $2.3 million — will stabilize the Mint Springs bluff within the park at the south end of the Vicksburg National Cemetery. Awards for that work are expected to be made in about a month, Madell said.

Surveys for the bluff-stabilization effort were under way in February.

The ASU project, a $400,000 grant for restoration at the campus’ Belles Lettres Hall initially announced in September, is one of 20 nationwide funded by grants totaling $14.25 million for historic preservation at historically black colleges and universities and will also be administered by the National Park Service.

Belles Lettres Hall, on the Lorman campus of the college, is a designated Mississippi landmark in Claiborne County.

Madell said VNMP officials had requested more than $2 million for the Shirley House, the outside of which was restored in 2009 as part of a separate project. The amount finally awarded in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 won’t do as much as initially hoped, but will still provide structural rehabilitation and allow limited ranger-guided tours inside the house, the superintendent said.

Ultimately, Madell hopes future funding sources will make possible the purchase of reproductions of period furniture pieces and a number of exhibits that will enhance tourist visits to the house.