Natchez, pearl on the Mississippi River
March 14th
There were looming, grey clouds hanging over us as we had our hot breakfast at the campsite. We drove into Natchez, passing the typical fast-food restaurants and economy motels, but as we crossed the center of town towards the Visitors’ Center, Fabien mentioned that this was one of the first towns he had seen in the U.S. that resembles a French village. I think it was inspired by the fact that there are a lot of narrow one-way roads and the houses are built closely together. The Natchez Visitors’ Center had an excellent exhibition about the history of the town- the rise and fall of the cotton plantations, the ugly history of slavery, and the devastating effects of the Civil War and revival of the city in the 20th century, strongly linked to tourism. We happened to visit during their Spring Pilgrimage, a program that was organized by the Garden Club during the 1930s to showcase their beautiful anti-bellum homes. We didn’t do a Pilgrimage tour because it was a pretty full day of mansion visits (by this point, we’ve visited a number of plantation homes) but instead chose to do a self-guided walking tour of the town. One of the sites on the tour was an old prison, built in red brick to look like a home. Apparently it was the only prison structure in the U.S. to be built to resemble a home. The building now houses some administrative offices, and when Fabien stopped to take a picture of the outside, some employees standing on the porch asked if we wanted to come in and see. Amazingly the old prison cells with their iron bars were still intact on the 2nd floor (complete with latrine) but the 3rd floor was the real attraction- there was a ring in the ceiling where they used to put the noose to do the hangings. The idea that they are working downstairs from this gives me the creeps, but they seemed to be okay with it. We asked if they could recommend a good restaurant for some Southern cooking and they sent us to the Eola hotel lunch buffet, where we had a delicious meal of fried chicken, fried okra, stewed collard greens, cream corn, sweet potatoes, peach cobbler and sweet tea…mid-way through lunch the heavy rain started that would continue until about 9pm.
The last visit of the day was to the Longwood house, a most unusual place. The house is octagonal with a dome on top designed to reflect light into the 30,000 square feet of intended living space. The unusual part is that the construction was halted on the house during the Civil War and was never finished. Several generations of the family lived in the basement because they couldn’t afford to finish the house. Now it’s a national landmark, owned and operated by the Natchez Garden Club. The construction will never be finished- it is supposed to remind us of the devastating effects of the Civil War.
When we got back to the campground it was pouring rain. Fabien, courageous as he is, went for a run while I sat in the car reading. When the rain let up, we built a fire and tried to cook dinner, but another storm forced us to move our outdoor kitchen under the protection of the back door of our car. We eventually managed to eat our dinner and crawl into our sleepy bags for a chilly, wet night in the tent.
Tags: BIG TRIP 2011, In English 2005-2006, Mississippi FR
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