The primary Younger Males’s Christian Affiliation (YMCA) was based in 1844 by 22-year-old George Williams with 11 buddies in London, England, to deal with urgent social challenges confronted by younger males like himself. Years later, retired sea captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan labored as a marine missionary and realized that sailors and retailers additionally wanted a spot to name dwelling. In 1851, Sullivan based the primary YMCA in america in Boston, impressed by YMCA tales in England. Within the 1860s, YMCA housing was established to supply secure and reasonably priced lodging for younger males shifting from rural areas. These services included gyms, auditoriums, and hotel-like rooms.
Early within the 1900s, the YMCA had constructed quite a few services all through the Southeast, usually serving as a significant useful resource for males, particularly throughout segregation. Numerous these YMCA buildings supplied important companies comparable to secure lodging, meals, and leisure actions. In Could 1919, the Vicksburg Night Put up reported that Mrs. Fannie Johnson, a neighborhood philanthropist, deliberate to donate loads and fund the development of a YMCA constructing in downtown Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Frances “Fannie” Vick Willis Johnson is the great-grandchild of Main Burwell Vick. His brother is Newit Hartwell Vick, who purchased the land the place Vicksburg is situated, and left a portion of his property to be divided into plots of land for the founding of a metropolis when he died in 1819 of yellow fever. Vicksburg was included in 1825 and named Vicksburg in Newit Vick’s honor by his brother, Burwell (Fannie’s great-grandfather) and son, Hartwell Vick. Fannie married Junius Ward Johnson on Could 3, 1881. Following the loss of life of Fannie’s mom in 1900, the couple returned to Mississippi. They lived in Yazoo Metropolis for a time and had residences at Panther Burn Plantation and in Vicksburg. Junius Ward Johnson was killed on March 17, 1919, in a twister when their home at Panther Burn collapsed and crushed him. After his loss of life, Fannie offered Panther Burn Plantation for $1 million.
In July 1919, a gathering was held to announce that the state YMCA had granted a constitution to Vicksburg. It was additionally introduced that Mrs. Johnson deliberate to construct a “well-equipped Y for Negro boys and males.” A second YMCA was constructed at Walnut and Jackson Streets and operated for blacks throughout segregation. Shortly after it was lastly given to the town within the early Nineteen Nineties, the constructing collapsed. Vicksburg constructed and operates the Jackson Road Group Middle on that website immediately.
Fannie Johnson appointed a constructing committee composed of Paul Polk, C.L. Warner, T.W. McCoy, George Sudduth, Wilson Carroll and J.W. Garrett. Following conferences with a number of architects, she chosen Chicago-based architects Shattuck and Layer to design the constructing in a Classical Revival model with Beaux Arts components. Within the years prior, Shattuck and Hussey (Shattuck’s associate earlier than Layer) received a design competitors for the Chicago YMCA, and went on to design dozens of the almost 200 YMCA buildings in america constructed between 1906 and World Struggle I. The YMCA handled the agency’s designers as quasi-employees and relied on the agency to provide useful, cost-effective services. These might simply be replicated from venture to venture and diminished danger for native YMCA constructing committees. Their designs for the Y group have been closely influenced by the Chicago College which clad metal and concrete constructions with masonry and neoclassical particulars.
Building of the YMCA in Vicksburg started two years after the venture was introduced. In March 1922, the Vicksburg Herald reported that “Vicksburg can have a really lively Younger Males’s Christian Affiliation in a really quick time.” The affiliation has been organized, as far as the officers and administrators are involved, however the work of effecting an lively group by securing members has been delayed on account of the dearth of a constructing. Cash for the erection of the constructing has been contributed by Mrs. Fannie Johnson, who has additionally contributed a really helpful lot, admirably located for the aim, however the price of development has been considered prohibitive.” Underwood Contracting Company of New Orleans was chosen to construct the brand new YMCA on the northwest nook of Clay and Monroe streets.
Building prices have been $184,286 for a complete of $225,242 together with furnishings, and the land price was $36,000. Fannie Johnson’s present was $190,000, which she mentioned was not given in reminiscence of her late husband, however regardless, the constructing can be named after him. An article within the Put up reported that “It had been thought that the erection of the Y.M.C.A. constructing by Mrs. Johnson is likely to be thought of, in a way, as a memorial to her husband, the late J.W. Johnson, who was, for a few years, one of many state’s most distinguished and influential residents and one in every of whom Vicksburg left justly proud.” Mrs. Johnson states, nevertheless, that this isn’t the case. It’s true that she and Mr. Johnson talked concerning the matter of erecting the constructing many instances, and he was simply as deeply inquisitive about it as she, nevertheless it won’t be erected in his reminiscence.”
Contractors constructed 200 to 225 casings, every 200 toes lengthy, to type the muse for the three-story constructing. Casings have been pushed into the bottom to assist concrete pillars for the constructing’s basis. The Junius Ward Johnson YMCA was devoted November 11, 1923. When it first opened, dues for boys have been $6 yearly and $10 for males yearly; rooms may very well be rented for $12.50 a month. There are separate entrances, showers, dressing rooms and social rooms for males and boys. There was a billiard room, an indoor pool, a well-equipped gymnasium with a gallery above the gymnasium and a stage on the north finish, and 33 dormitory rooms. When it grew to become clear that further residence rooms have been wanted, a fourth ground was added in 1929 at a value of $47,912.
The Junius Ward Johnson YMCA was added to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations as a contributing factor to the Uptown Vicksburg Historic District in 1993 and was extra lately included as a beforehand listed factor within the Uptown Vicksburg Modification and Boundary Enhance #2, which was added to the Nationwide Register in February 2020. The historic YMCA constructing was offered to Nashville-based developer Michael Hayes in April 2000. The YMCA moved to a brand new facility in 2002, and Hayes deliberate to transform the constructing into 27 one- and two-bedroom flats for seniors. Later, the constructing was set to deal with a department of the Farish Road Blues Museum, a nonprofit devoted to preserving the historical past of Blues music alongside U.S. Freeway 61, generally often known as “Blues Freeway.” Nevertheless, the constructing requires extra repairs than the museum can cowl and was quickly vacated. The constructing has sat empty for greater than 20 years.
The ornate copper cornice was stolen some years in the past by thieves who made their method into the attic. They pushed the cornice out of its pockets, and the copper fell to the bottom and was retrieved. The noise was loud, and the police have been known as, however nobody was arrested. In July 2023, the Junius Ward Johnson YMCA was listed on the market for $400,000. As of 2025, the constructing remains to be on the market in a extreme state of disrepair.
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