The overgrown family cemetery sandwiched between commercial developments on South Frontage Road and Interstate 20 has sat abandoned and neglected for years.

The 1-acre Tate Family Cemetery at the corner of South Frontage Road and Cypress Centre Boulevard is a 110-years-old cemetery on private property.

Besides being an eyesore for anyone traveling the frontage road or Interstate 20, there’s another problem with the cemetery. No one knows who now owns it.

In order to get someone to clean the property, the city needs to know who the proper heirs are.

Under state law, a city can go on private property and clear it if the site is declared a menace to health and safety, but it must notify the property owner of its intentions and hold a hearing.

An overgrown lot obstructing lines of sight for vehicles turning onto South Frontage Road from Cypress Centre Boulevard is a menace to health and safety

According to Warren County tax records, the cemetery, listed as “Cemetery-Jonestown or Tate,” was started in 1905, when the area was known as the Jonestown community. The records do not show an owner and provide no contact information.

“The only names available are people on the deed who were alive in 1905,” Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “This is 2015. Right now, I don’t know of anybody walking around here who was living in 1905.”

City Attorney Nancy Thomas and Community Development Director Victor Grey-Lewis are working to see if there is some way the city can acquire the property and clean it up.

The city should be careful as it looks to acquire the property though imminent domain, in the meantime it will continue to be a blight along the most traveled corridor in our community, unless someone has a creative solution.