In North Vicksburg, a one-way street climbs a steep hill to connect Sky Farm Avenue with Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Called Zollinger’s Hill, the street is named for Valentine T. Zollinger Sr. and his wife Anna, who owned 33 acres of land east of what is now Mission 66 that included the hill. The property, which included two houses, a barn, orchard and springs, went down the hill to Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Zollinger was a meat merchant and steamboat butcher in the 1870s with his primary business on Levee Street. He died at the age of 45 during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878.

The family-owned Zollinger’s Grocery, which in the early 1800s was located in a two-story building on the northwest side of Openwood Street between First East and First North streets.

The grocery was located on the first floor of the building while the second floor was used as the residence for Valentine Thomas Zollinger Jr. and his brother John Frank. Their mother Anna later joined them after her house located near the cemetery burned in February 1884.

Anna later remarried to a Mr. Webster who died before the 1884 fire. In October 1887, she adopted one of two children left homeless when their mother died in the state hospital.

John Frank Zollinger operated the family store. His brother Valentine was a concrete contractor who built bridges, sidewalks and roads throughout Warren County.

In 1923, Valentine Zollinger built roadways inside Cedar Hill Cemetery at the same time the fence was being erected around its perimeter.

John Frank was a member of the board of directors of the Retail Grocery Association in 1904 and was still in business in the Openwood store in 1935.

The building was rented for many years and was vacant in the 1960s. It is presently an empty lot.