Billy Wince wept for two days upon hearing the news that his father, Tom Wince, would be honored with a Mississippi Blues Trail marker in downtown Vicksburg.

If his father were still alive, Billy is convinced the older Wince would still be crying.

“This is mega. This is huge for my father and the Wince family to be recognized like this,” said Wince after about 100 people joined him in unveiling a Mississippi Blues Trail marker to honor the Blue Room. “This is very humbling.”

The marker, placed near the northwest corner of Clay and Mulberry streets, sits across the street from the site of the former Blue Room, founded by Tom Wince. It operated for more than 30 years and played host to some of the biggest names in blues and jazz — including Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, T-Bone Walker, Ray Charles and Fats Domino.

The marker is the fifth in Vicksburg and the 140th statewide. Many of those in attendance were veterans of the Blue Room.

“I grew up in the Delta but moved to Vicksburg when I was 12 years old,” said Dr. Edgar Smith of the Mississippi Blues Commission. “I was a country boy back then, but one thing we heard about was the Blue Room. When I finally managed to get there, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I said, ‘this place is classy.’

“You had the Crystal Palace in Jackson and the Blue Room in Vicksburg.”

Tom Wince operated the Blue Room from 1937 to 1972. Its heyday in the 1940s and ’50s attracted the biggest jazz and blues acts of the day. It also was a multipurpose complex that included a ballroom, restaurant, gambling casino, guest rooms and living quarters for Wince and some of his family.

“When you went to the Blue Room, it was something else,” said Zelmarine Murphy, today the president of the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees. “You’d dress up and got your hair worked on for a week.”

Security at the club was nonexistent, other than Tom Wince himself, Billy Wince said. “If there ever was a problem, all you had to do was raise your hand and Tom would jump over the bar and get them out.”

Tom Wince, born in 1910 to sharecroppers in Oak Ridge, was a hotel bellhop with a fourth-grade education. Billy Wince said his father’s first business venture started near where the historic marker now stands. Tom Wince was standing on a street corner one day when a few drunks walked by asking if he wanted some beer. They left him with seven or eight bottles, which he immediately sold. He started selling beer and Cokes in 1937 and business flourished.

He was known as much for his diamond ring that stretched from knuckle to knuckle and his pink Ford Thunderbird with leopard skin upholstery as he was for his club. In 1972, the federal Urban Renewal Project led to the closing of the Blue Room. He operated the Barrel Club on Walnut Street after the Blue Room closed until his death in 1978. On his gravestone at Cedar Hill Cemetery is a large star, much like the one that adorned the front of the Blue Room.

“As we stand here and reflect on the history of Vicksburg and the great talent that performed here, it’s overwhelming,” said Bill Seratt, executive director of the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and a member of the Mississippi Blues Commission. “This is just a small token symbolizing what Tom contributed to this community.”

The Mississippi Blues Trail was created in 2004. Markers began being erected around the state in 2006 and there are 140 markers statewide recognizing the state’s blues culture. The other four in Vicksburg are for Highway 61 South, at Washington and Jackson streets; Marcus Bottom, on Halls Ferry Road between Bowmar Avenue and Lane Street; Red Tops, at Clay and Walnut streets; and Willie Dixon at Mulberry and South streets.

“My daddy was a short man, not much taller than me,” Billy Wince said. “But today, he is taller than all these buildings.”