It’s a history of Mississippi in ships.

Sitting inside a glass enclosed room at the Old Depot Museum on Levee Street are tables holding the models of five ships named Mississippi: a steam-powered Navy frigate built in the late 1830s, two battleships, a nuclear powered guided missile cruiser and the most recent boat to bear the state’s name, a nuclear submarine.

The only models missing are the Confederate States Navy ironclads named Mississippi.

“We decided to put up the display for Mississippi’s Bicentennial,” said Dave Benway, museum curator and director, who built the models of the two battleships and the steam-powered frigate Mississippi.

All the models, he said, are 1/96th scale, where 1 inch equals 8 feet. The detail is sharp; on the model of the World War II battleship Mississippi, BB41, people can see the twin 40mm antiaircraft guns and the 20mm Oerlikon cannons. The riggings are taut, and the models are surrounded by photographs and memorabilia from the ships.

Concerning the construction of the BB41 model, museum owner Lamar Roberts said Benway “began with a piece of paper and a pile of wood.”

Each ship has stories from its namesake’s history.

Built in 1839, the frigate Mississippi, Roberts said, was the Navy’s first steam-powered warship and took Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan in 1852. It was sunk in 1863 while trying to get past the Confederate fortress at Port Hudson while sailing to Vicksburg.

The World War II Battleship Mississippi, Benway said, was the first of the New Mexico Class of battleships built for the Navy in 1918, and went through five refits during its life as a warship.

“The Navy wanted to give it to the State of Mississippi for a museum, but the state said it didn’t have the money to dig the channel to bring it to the Gulf Coast,” Roberts said. Two ships share a class name, Benway said. The guided missile cruiser Mississippi is a Virginia Class cruiser. The submarine USS Mississippi is a Virginia Class fast attack submarine.

Benway said the display has drawn some attention from museum visitors, adding he plans to put a banner on a wall over the models calling attention to their relationship with the state.

“They will be out here until the end of the year,” he said.