LAKE NEWS
RECORD ALLIGATOR
Eagle Lake sets new record for record weight for a female alligator. On August 30th the female 9 feet 11 inches 319 pounder was caught in Eagle Lake by a group of people from Mendenhall. She didn’t break the length record but is very significant because females of that size-in the 10 foot rang-are extremely rare and is one of the largest female ever recorded in the world. See Monsters of the Mississippi @ www.vicksburgpost.com for more details.
FISHING: Some Bass and bream are being caught. Bass size is good but bream are running on the small size.
HISTORY
Eagle Lake‘s Restored Plantation
Eventually William had a Virginia native Bazil Kiger manage his Buena Vista plantation (Spanish for Beautiful View). Kiger married William’s niece and purchased it to raise his family there until he passed away at the age of 90. Kiger’s daughter Mary Bell, married John Conway and the family raised cattle on the plantation for many years. Eventually lack of maintenance led to its great decay. Another Eagle Lake family the Rodgers purchased the Buena Vista and restored it.
In 1863 General Grants Union Commissary pulled into Eagle Bend and stripped every plantation of every movable thing, including food and livestock solders pillaged most of the Eagle Bend plantations during the siege of Vicksburg. The Eagle Bend plantations were not burned. Buena Vista plantation was spared for union solders use as a union army hospital.
When the Rodgers purchased Buena Vista it had two floors and a attic. Each floor had two large rooms a center hall and stairs .
The original house was built around 1842 in 1840 Federal Style. The home as built with cypress wood, harvested locally, and most of the tools, nails and other materials were made by the plantation blacksmith. The house currently has five bedrooms and three modern baths for comfort. There are eight fireplaces, ten foot windows, thirteen foot ceilings downstairs and twelve foot ceilings upstairs. The master bedroom suit contains a huge master bath, complete with its own fireplace and whirlpool tube. The kitchen is equipped with ceramic counter tops and professional stainless steel appliances and the cabinet doors were saved from the original freestanding kitchen.
The front of the house faces the lake and it’s view is framed by a 200+ year old oak tree.
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