Since Vicksburg was founded in 1825, the city has been known for its extravagant homes.

Several survive today as tour homes and bed and breakfasts, but some of the finest structures ever constructed here are gone with the wind.

Many of the luxurious homes that survived a barrage of cannonballs in 1863 fell victim to the wrecking ball in the early 20th century.

Among the finest of the antebellum structures to survive the Civil War only to be destroyed in a push for urban renewal was Shamrock, the home of William and Julia Porterfield.

The two-story home wasn’t the biggest in Vicksburg, but what it lacked in size it made up for with extravagance.

The brick home was flanked by columns in the front and rear. The dining room was 24 feet by 42 feet with 18-foot high ceilings and a floor made of alternating blocks of white and blue marble. The home also featured two marble mantles, and its walls were decorated with hand-carved walnut panels.

The home’s lush garden of exotic plants prominently featured a large fountain.

It was demolished in the 1930s.

Other extravagant homes that met the wrecking ball include a single-story home surrounded by Ionic columns that had been owned by relatives of Newitt Vick, founder of the city, and the home of Ed Butts, an early bank president. The Butts home featured a second-floor porch supported by columns and rounded archways.

Though it wasn’t a home per se, one of the most luxurious spots in Vicksburg for years was the Washington Hotel at the corner of Washington and China Streets. Among its famous guests were noted playwright Oscar Wilde and President Millard Fillmore.

President Theodore Roosevelt also stayed at the Washington when he visited the region in the early 1900s.

The Wheeler House, which served as an early boarding house run by Milly Crump and her sister Jennie Crump Wilkerson, and later was Vicksburg Infirmary, was another grand columned structure that survived well into the modern age but was torn down.

Vicksburg Infirmary closed in 1967, and today, what was once the site of a three-story columned house, is the parking lot for First Baptist Church.