In her book “Vicksburg and the River,” Virginia Calhoun Harrell writes that the Mississippi River brought Vicksburg’s earliest settlers to the area with pioneers representing many diverse ethnic groups including Native American, French, Spanish, English, Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Swiss, Jewish, Russian and Chinese.

“They represented every strata of society from the aristocracy and intelligentsia to the illiterate and renegade. Vicksburg developed into a veritable melting pot and remains so today. Its cosmopolitan ambiance and contrasting life styles are rarely found in other cities of comparable size,” Harrell writes.

It was the horseshoe bend the river made around the land, which was covered with thick forests, that drew ethnic groups from all over the world who wanted to make this place home.

Harrell speculates that those of the Jewish faith who came from Germany, Bavaria, Baden, Alsace-Loraine, and Prussia came probably because of the similarity between the Vicksburg hillsides overlooking the Mississippi River and those overlooking the Rhine, Main, Neckar and Donau Rivers.

African Americans were also some of the earliest settlers along the banks of the Mississippi River in Vicksburg. The population grew due to the demand for slaves and the need for roustabouts, who were the laborers that rode the steamboats from town to town up and down the Mississippi River loading and unloading cargo at the waterfront.  Black Union troops involved with the Vicksburg Campaign also settled in Vicksburg, Harrell states.

One of the largest ethnic groups in Vicksburg’s society was the Syrian-Lebanese who made their way to Vicksburg as early as 1897. Many were Christians trying to escape persecution and improve themselves economically, Harrell writes.

“Most of the immigrants were peddlers of some sort, so they peddled some kinds of goods, and my grandfather started working in the grocery business,” Dani Kay Thomas said.

Thomas is the granddaughter of the late Pete Nosser Sr., a Lebanese immigrant who is considered an innovator of his day because he opened the first supermarket in the state of Mississippi in 1933.

Before, grocery stores only sold food, and Nosser’s Jitney Jungle store that was located at the corner of South and Monroe streets was a one-stop shopping experience for customers. In addition to offering groceries, the store included a deli, a lunch counter, a bakery, toys and over-the-counter medications.

Thomas likened it to a mini Walmart.

Nosser was born in El Monsef, Lebanon, and came to the U.S. by a boat that landed at Ellis Island in New York City. He arrived in Vicksburg on Memorial Day in 1920.

“He came to Vicksburg because he actually had an uncle already living here,” Thomas said.

Nosser was 17 years old and had about $10 in his pocket when he arrived in Vicksburg, Thomas said.

He started working in the grocery business with his Uncle Jo and later at a grocery store on Belmont Street and then one in Waltersville.

He met his future wife, Bessie, in 1927, when she was only 13 years old, and the couple later married in 1929.

Thomas added that same year her grandfather had earned enough money to pay cash for the home he built on Drummond Street, which is still standing, and to buy the vacant lot next door.

In 1933, only 13 years after living in America, Nosser once again had worked and saved enough money to make it possible for him to own his own store.

Jitney Jungle was already a franchised business, so not only did he have to buy property and build a building, he also had to pay the franchise fee, Thomas said.

At the time Nosser open his business, the depression made it difficult to make a living for everyone, and while most of the other shop keepers were allowing their customers to buy on credit or through bartering back and forth, Thomas said her grandfather decided his business concept would be different and it would be “cash and carry only.”

“Everybody said that he would go broke, but he did great.”

For a man that had only been formally educated to the age of 13, he made sure all four of his children received a college education, and he was the first person of Lebanese decent who became an America citizen that was asked to be on the First National Bank Board in Vicksburg and the Mercy Hospital Board, Thomas said.

Thomas said her grandfather was very hard working and very honest, and he loved America.

“My aunt Lila said he never complained, and all she can remember is how much he loved America, and that he was so fortunate to be here, so much so he would never speak any Arabic in front of his family and would not allow it spoken in his home.”

Nosser left his mother and father in Lebanon to come to America, Thomas said. He had two brothers that also came to America, one who lived in Clarksdale and the other in Natchez.

His brother in Natchez also served as the mayor at one time, Thomas said.

Nosser also had one brother that stayed in their mother country, and he had a twin brother and sister who the family thinks died of starvation since times were so bad.

Thomas said her grandfather was a man of great faith and feels that this was also one of the reasons he came to the U.S.

“One of my grandfather’s legacies he left behind was that he was a very devout Christian, and I think that is why he wanted to come to America because they were under such persecution for being Christians, and he came here to seek asylum.”

Thomas said her grandfather also loved and valued his family, always eating together and being together for holidays.

Nosser’s Jitney Jungle store is depicted on one of the 32 Vicksburg Riverfront Mural-panels painted by Robert Dafford.