Natchez, Mississippi

From Encyclopediak

Natchez, NacJi ez, Miss., a city and the county scat of Adams Co., about 100 m. s.w. of Jackson, on the Mississippi River and on the Yazoo Mississippi Valley, the Mississippi Central, and the Natchez Southern railroads. Steamboats connect the city with the entire Mississippi Valley, and an extensive commerce is carried on. Cotton, which is cultivated on a vast scale in the surrounding region, is the leading article of export, approximately 100,000 bales being shipped annually. Among the manufactures are cotton goods, cottonseed oil and cake, candy, brooms, brick, and lumber products. There is also an artificial ice plant. Natchez is built largely on a bluff, 200 ft. above the river. The base, or water-front, is given over to shipping, while the residential districts crown the summit. Prominent among the institutions are the court-house and antebellum city hall buildings, Elks and Prentiss club buildings, Fisk Library, Agnes Z. Carpenter Public Library, Natchez Institute, Institute Hall, Natchez Hotel, Jefferson Military College, and numerous splendid public and parochial schools, hospitals, and sanatoriums. There are a number of fine churches and antebellum residences. Memorial Park, in the heart of the city, is a memorial to Confederate dead. Adjoining the city is a National cemetery where about 3,000 unknown dead are buried. Near the city limits is the former estate of Winthrop Sargent, the first governor of the Territory of Mississippi. The first white settlement on the site of Natchez was made in 1716, when Le Moyne de Bienville built Ft. Rosalie. This fort was destroyed and the inhabitants massacred in 1729. It was rebuilt and renamed Ft. Parmure by the English, who took possession according to the terms of the Treaty of Paris. In 1779 the Spanish took possession, and in 1798 Spain gave way to the United States. Natchez was the capital of the Natchez District and Mississippi Territory to 1802, and received a city charter in 1803. Much of the city was destroyed by a tornado in 1840. It was shelled by Commodore Porter in 1862, and soon after the fall of Vicksburg fell into the hands of the Federals, who occupied it until the close of the Civil War. The government provides for a mayor, chosen biennially, and a unicameral council which elects the school trustees. Population in 1920, U. S. Census, 12,608.