Natchez

Views of the Mississippi River at Natchez, Mississippi.

Bridge over Mississippi River.  Natchez is built on a bluff overlooking the river and is famous for its many beautiful antebellum homes.

Natchez National Historic Park

Melrose is a two story Greek Revival antebellum mansion.  Melrose was home to John T. McMurran, lawyer and state senator who was a cotton planter in Natchez from 1830 until the Civil War.  On the grounds are also slave quarters for both house servants and field workers.  

The parks service is in the process of refurbishing Melrose to its original opulence - these pillars will be made to look as they originally did, a faux marble finish with red veining.

Cast iron porch railing

Gilt mirrors, lights, and cornices.  This room was meant to impress guests, to showcase the incredible wealth of the McMurran family.

Mahogany punkah, a fan used to cool the dining room.  A slave child would pull the rope, swinging the fan back and forth over the table.

Longwood Mansion

Longwood also known as Nutt's Folley is a historic octagonal antebellum mansion begun in 1859 by a Philladelphia architect for cotton planter Dr. Haller Nutt.  Work on the house was halted at the start of the Civil War when northern carpenters returned home.  Of the 32 rooms planned for the house only nine rooms in the basement were completed.  Longwood, never finished, was the last burst of southern opulence before the war brought an end to the cotton barons' dominance.

Onion dome

Forks of the Road

By the early 1800s, cotton had become the main cash crop and with the invention of the cotton gin and enslaved labor, Natchez became the center of the cotton producing industry.  Seeking wealth through cotton, more and more Americans and Europeans migrated to Natchez creating a demand for thousands of slaves.  However, a new law made it illegal to bring captives from Africa so slaves were imported from other southern states.  This internal trafficking of slaves was known as America's domestic "slave-trade" industry and Natchez was at the center of it.

Natchez Trace

Old Natchez Trace

Natchez Trace Parkway is 444 miles long extending from Natchez to Nashville, Tennessee.  It brings to mind images of Daniel Boone, unknown Kentuckians, and Chickasaw Indians.  We drove along this leisurely trail for only 50 miles but we would both like to travel the entire distance someday.  Any bike riders out there?  It would make a perfect bicycle trip!  

Loess Bluff, this bluff shows a deep deposit of wind blown topsoil known as loess.  It was formed during the Ice Age when dust was blown from the western plains and covered this area with dust 30 to 90 feet deep.  Where the old Natchez Trace passed over loess it formed sunken roads, in places 20 feet deep.

Closer view of loess, the 3 to 30 mile wide band extends from Baton Rouge to Tennessee on the eastern edge of the Mississippi River.