Residents are expected to get their first look at the inside of the Catfish Row Museum in 2018, when building’s owners hold a “sneak peak” of some of the exhibits planned for the museum.

The date for the preview has not been set.

The museum is in the old Monte Carlo building at 913 Washington St. It was bought in 2014 by Linda and James Fondren with plans to develop it into a multifaceted museum and interpretive center.

The goal of the project is to develop a major attraction for the city that will bring people downtown, teach tourists and residents about Vicksburg’s history and culture, feed them, and entertain them with live Mississippi Blues.

Monday, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, which administers a $500,000 state grant for the project, received four bids from contractors to begin renovations and improvements to the building. The bids were taken under advisement.

“I am so excited about this,” Linda Fondren said. “Everything takes longer than you expect.”

But the project, she said, has not been standing still while waiting on the architect’s designs and the bid opening.

“We’ve had writers who have been down from Washington, D.C.; they are the same writers that helped with the African-American Museum in Washington. We’ve gotten stories already and been around Vicksburg collecting oral histories; we’ve been busy in this front.”

The oral histories, she said, are included in the opening exhibit called “Local Voices,” which will introduce the city’s diverse communities that comprise Vicksburg’s story.

“That will be a sneak preview of what will be there and also what is to come,” she said.

Fondren said the initial work includes renovating the building’s exterior, and interior work to prepare the building for the sneak preview, such as heating and air conditioning and restrooms.

Besides the exhibits, the completed museum will include a cafe with a venue for live entertainment.

The Monte Carlo Building has its own unique history.

It was built in 1911 for Christian and Burroughs Co., which built wagons and carriages. It was then used by a car dealership, which stayed in the building until the late 1920s, and later became a 7-Up bottling plant until the 1960s.

The building was later turned into a nightclub owned jointly by Joe Farris and Jesse Smith and called the Monte Carlo Club, which gained notoriety as a dance hall that booked regional and national rhythm and blues acts in the 1970s and early ’80s.

The building deteriorated, and in 2007 the city razed the north section of the building, which had been damaged during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The Fondrens bought the 106-year-old building from Vicksburg resident Malcolm Carson in December for $240,000.

Carson had bought the building in 2010 from Farris, a Vicksburg native who moved California and owned the building for 40 years.

The Mississippi Legislature in 2016 approved a $500,000 grant for the museum project.

Fondren said tourism studies indicate an estimated 1.24 million people visit Vicksburg each year by car and boat making Vicksburg Mississippi’s biggest tourist attraction.

Vicksburg attracts visitors from all 50 states and nearly the same number of countries across the globe, and more than 500,000 people visit one of Mississippi’s greatest tourist magnets each year – the Vicksburg National Military Park. In 2017, 103 riverboat cruises are expected to bring 26,000 passengers to Vicksburg, up from 75 dockings last year, and 113 are scheduled for 2018.

“The Catfish Row Museum will highlight the distinctive contributions of African-American as well as Lebanese, Jewish, Greek, Italian and Chinese communities,” Fondren said.

“It will also provide a needed modern and lively venue for students and families to gather for programs to pass down traditions, knowledge, and skills to the next generation through partnerships with the farmers market and other cultural and educational organizations.”