PORT GIBSON — A proposal to develop U.S. 61 through the city Union forces declared was too beautiful to burn has some residents burning with anger.

The idea by the Mississippi Department of Transportation to widen U.S. 61 through Church Street, lined with historic homes and churches, may well kill Port Gibson, Church Street resident Jane Ellis said.

“We have a pretty good tourism industry here, but that is what we have left, our tourism,” Ellis said.

A member of the Highway 61 Committee, a group formed to fight the decision, Ellis said she believes having the highway pass through Church Street will damage both the historic oaks and antebellum homes and churches that line the street.

The proposal would widen the highway to go from curb to curb on Church Street, eliminating the street parking.

Church Street resident Jimmy Persons, who lives in a house his great-grandfather bought in the 1850s, is also against the decision.

“This area wasn’t designed to handle that kind of traffic,” Persons said. “It’s hard to cross the street as it is. Why would they four-lane it if they don’t expect an increase in traffic?”

A traffic study done by engineering group PBS&J determined just that — by the year 2032 the traffic along U.S. 61 will increase by 45 percent.

And that is why Port Gibson Mayor Fred Reeves wants a bypass built around the town.

“We are trying to preserve our historic district and change some areas in Port Gibson,” Reeves said.

If the bypass is built, it could mean more jobs for the community as businesses expand from downtown to the bypass area, Reeves said.

“If they built a bypass going in the easterly direction around the town, it would go right past the industrial park, which has four or five empty buildings in it,” he said. “Industry could move in the industrial park and use it to get to the main thoroughfare.”

Opponents to the bypass have said the city will die if the highway does not pass through it, but Reeves disagrees.

“Other towns have survived with bypasses,” he said. “Look at Vicksburg. Look at Natchez. They survived.”

Concerned citizens have tied crime tape around the trees on Church Street because “it would be a crime if anything was done to them,” Ellis said.

For Edna Montgomery, a member of the historic St. Peter African Methodist Episcopal Church, having the highway widened through the area has her concerned about safety.

“I guess we will have to step out into the highway out of the church door,” she said.

U.S. 61 runs from Wyoming, Minn., to New Orleans.