Red Tops

The Red Tops ran like a business. Under drummer and manager Walter Osborne the Vicksburg band kept detailed ledgers, held annual audits and booked a year ahead, though every member had a day job. Matching red uniforms were tailor-made, members faced regular inspections and rules of conduct, and rehearsals were Monday evenings at the YMCA on Jackson Street. First billed at the Sequoia Hill Club in Bovina on June 20, 1953, they played pop, blues and jazz for dancers across the state at spots like the Harlem Inn in Winstonville and Ruby's Night Spot in Leland.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Court House Museum — 0.2 mi
  Vicksburg's Greek Revival courthouse of 1860, raised on a hilltop with the labor of enslaved artisans and now a private local-history museum heavy on Confederate relics.
• Vicksburg National Military Park — 1.8 mi
  A 16-mile tour road through the trenches of the 47-day siege of 1863, with a national cemetery and the story of the thousands of enslaved people who reached freedom behind Union lines.
• USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum — 2.0 mi
  The raised hull of a Union river ironclad sunk by a mine in the Yazoo in 1862, displayed at Vicksburg National Military Park with the artifacts the river mud preserved.

More markers nearby

• The Vicksburg & Queen of the West — steps away
• Firing on the A.O. Tyler — steps away
• C.S.S. Arkansas — steps away
• The Steamer Sultana — steps away