No one expected anything to happen with lightning speed when the MV Mississippi IV was retired in 1993.

First, it went to Memphis, which was its home port, where it sat. Then, when Memphis said it had no plans for the former Army Corps of Engineers’ flagboat on the nation’s greatest river, former Vicksburg Mayor Joe Loviza said Vicksburg would take it — especially for the $1 price tag.

Loviza envisioned the boat permanently moored at City Front as a replacement, of sorts, for the sternwheeler Sprague that had burned at its moorings there on April 15, 1973.

But politics being politics, the Loviza administration gave way to a return of former Mayor Robert Walker, who saw no potential for “Joe’s boat” and ordered it pushed to the Vicksburg harbor where it was tied off, left to the elements and with the city seemingly wasting lots of money on docking fees for a boat that had no future.

The Corps pressed, gently, the “use it or lose it” terms of the sale. The federal government didn’t really want the boat back, but was required to take some action.

It was then that the long-envisioned impetus for an interpretive center — explaining river commerce and the role of the Corps in maintaining navigation and fighting floods on the Lower Mississippi — gained speed. The idea of a drydocked MV Mississippi IV serving as the centerpiece was included in a design and initial funding was received. The city transferred the deed back in 2005.

After a serious cleaning two years ago, the 1,450-ton vessel was hauled ashore for a slow roll down Washington Street in 2007 to a berthing near the former Illinois Central Railroad Depot.

To date, about $8.5 million of allocated funds have been spent, project manager Pat Chambers said last week.

If the support building and other amen-ities that are part of a spectacular site design are to be completed in 2011, contracts must be signed by September of this year. A walkway and observation deck will be fashioned out of the old Fairground Street bridge, which will be disassembled and rebuilt anew just south of the two larger structures.

It has never made much sense that the Corps has interpretive centers all across America and throughout the Mississippi basin, but none in Vicksburg, which has for more than a century been an operational headquarters. In weeks to come, it should become clear whether money to complete the work is available in allocations to the Corps. It certainly should be.

Preserving the MV Mississippi was a good idea 16 years ago. It’s still a good idea. No one expected lightning speed. But within two decades sounds pretty reasonable.