April 26, 2018 Natchez, Mississippi

Cloudy cool high 60's day. We toured some sites in Natchez. Natchez has over 1000 buildings on the historical ledger. In it's hey day it had the most millionaires in the US, during the cotton boom.

Mammy's Cupboard is a roadside restaurant built in 1939-40 and serves a menu of Mammy cooked homestyle meals. She is 28 feet high. Our next stop is the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians. They were the last surviving 'Mound' culture tribe. They farmed. Their ruler was called the Great Sun and lived on the Great Sun Mound. The second mound is the Temple Mound where an eternal flame was kept to symbolize the sun. This mound area was used more for ceremonies and the population lived on farms around the mound. A few french explorers lived with and recorded what their life was like. Later when the French began encroaching on their land the Natchez attacked the fort and killed 200 people, so the French retaliated by obliterating their tribe.  There was a nice museum with artifacts excavated from the mounds and explaining their culture. 

 The Natchez made woven reed baskets and none survived so they had baskets from surrounding cultures. These pine needle baskets were made by the  Coushatta tribe in Louisiana.  I love the animal ones embellished with the leaves of pine cones. 

Some more interesting pine needle baskets. I like the turtle. We then toured Longwood Gardens. The 'Oriental Villa' began construction in  in 1860 but was halted in 1861 by the rising tensions over the Civil War.  The interior was left unfinished except for the lowest level. The Nutt family lived in this finely furnished ground floor until the 20th century. It is the largest octagonal home in the North America. The grounds included  a cemetery, a detached kitchen, a carriage house and the 'necessary' or privy.

The outside was finished. Here are John and I on one of the many balconies. The didn't allow photos of the living quarters which were very lavish. It was supposed to be a six level home. This is the unfinished upper levels. The principle floor was for entertaining, the next floor was for the the bedrooms and the other three were for storage etc. The windows in the tower were going to have mirrors in them and direct light through skylight windows in the floor to the lower levels of the rotunda. 

We spent part of the evening across the Mississippi River in Vidalia, Louisiana. The outside columns of Longwood were hand carved. This is the floor plan of the principle floor that was never built. We also toured William Johnson house. William was a free  African American with a number of  successful barber shops. His home is right of the drainpipe. He built it out of bricks from a hotel down the street that was destroyed in a tornado. The bottom level was for shops and the family lived on the upper level. One of the bedrooms from the upper level. The kitchen and dependency which housed the slaves was in the back. 

We took a nice stroll on the river walk along the top of the bluff over the Mississippi river. This gazebo was on the walk along with a number of historical markers. 

We stopped at the Natchez Brewery so John could taste the IPA and had dinner on the outside deck in the sun that finally came out. Just three years ago is was illegal in Mississippi to brew beer, even in your own home, so the breweries are pretty new to Mississippi.