Vicksburg police investigators examine the site where a bulldozer unearthed a suitcase and bones wrapped in a woman’s dress along Army-Navy Drive Wednesday morning. The bones were later determined to be those of a dog. (Brian LodenThe Vicksburg Post)

[08/19/04] A skeleton that turned out to be a dog wrapped in a woman’s dress nonetheless caused a stir Wednesday during dirt-clearing work off Army-Navy Drive.

At least eight law-enforcement officers responded to the scene, near the northwest corner of Confederate Avenue and Army-Navy Drive, at a report of bones found.

Riverside Construction owner Lewis Miller and his crew were in their first 30 minutes of work on a long-term dirt-clearing project at the site, and he was operating a bulldozer when he made the find.

“It was my first push” with the bulldozer, Miller said, adding that the first thing he noticed was a military duffel bag on the ground.

“I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it,” he said of that bag.

Then he saw a suitcase roll off the blade of his bulldozer.

“The suitcase made me get off” the machine, he said. “I found a woman’s dress with bones in it.”

He called 911 to report it at 10:26 and about two hours later the bones had been examined by a veterinarian and confirmed to be those of a large animal, Miller said.

The clearing project will cover 6.9 acres at the site for potential development, possibly as patio homes, Miller said.

One of Riverside’s first tasks is to level a ridge along the sloping street, with most of the dirt to be hauled away and used on a separate project, he said.

Miller and his company’s longtime employee Billy Thompson said they had had a similar experience while working together on a project just outside the Vicksburg National Military Park about 39 years ago. That time, though, what they found was a human body, they said.

Another unusual discovery Miller’s company has made happened while it was building Pemberton Square mall, which opened in 1985.

“I uncovered a mastodon,” Miller said of the bones of a large, extinct animal resembling an elephant that was of interest to state archeological officials.