[11/4/03]Vicksburg bakers are invited to take their tastiest pies downtown Saturday for a contest to pick the city’s best.

The event is part of downtown festivities this weekend to help celebrate the reopening of Washington Street between the 1100 and 1500 blocks. Much of the area has been closed to traffic most of the year for a $2.6 million overhaul that included new, brick streets, sidewalks and landscaping.

Along with the pie contest, Main Street will be sponsoring a hardtack-eating contest and music by area bands and school groups. Activities begin at 10 a.m. for the Washington Street ribbon cutting followed by the annual Veterans Day parade, dedication of the River City Plaza at 11 a.m., pie-baking contest at noon and hardtack- eating contest at 1:30 p.m.

Rosalie Theobald, director of Main Street, said she hopes people will visit downtown and see the work done over the past year.

“For 20 years we have wanted all these things to fix up downtown,” Theobald said. “And now we finally have arrived.”

The ribbon cutting will be at Veto and Washington Streets and the pie-baking and hardtack-eating contests will be at the River Stage Plaza in the parking lot at Crawford and Washington streets.

Music will begin at 11:30 a.m. with The Chill followed by The Young Singers, Kids for Character, Nathaniel Williams & The Mighty Train of Gospel and Lightning Tom.

Construction on Washington Street began in January and finished last month. It included straightening the 1200 and 1300 blocks of Washington Street and the return of two-way traffic to all of Washington Street.

During federal urban renewal in the 1970s, those two blocks were converted to a pedestrian mall. Repaving Washington Street and returning it to its original configuration was one of the first goals of the current city administration, and the project was funded out of the $17.5 million bond issue two years ago this month.