The Natchez Bluffs and Under-the-Hill Historic District is a 75-acre (30 ha) historic district that was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It is roughly bounded by S. Canal St., Broadway, and the Mississippi River.[1]
Natchez Bluffs and Under-the-Hill Historic District | |
 Photo probably of city park area included in the district | |
   | |
| Location | Bounded by S. Canal St., Broadway, and the Mississippi River, Natchez, Mississippi |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 31°33′32″N 91°25′36″W / 31.55889°N 91.42667°W |
| Area | 75 acres (30 ha) |
| NRHP reference No. | 72000685[1] |
| Added to NRHP | April 11, 1972 |
The "Under-the-Hill" area once contained all of Natchez, i.e. about 20 buildings at the time of the American Revolutionary War. Gradually houses were built on the bluffs above, an "Upper Town" emerged, and eventually the center of Natchez shifted.[2] A steamboat man of 60 years described antebellum Natchez-Under-the-Hill in a memoir published 1915, writing, "Natchez under the Hill was noted for the many dance houses and gambling dens, all under the great bluff and immediately at the steamboat landing. There we landed and left our flatboats, and we ourselves remained there a considerable time. The sound of the fiddle and voice of the prompter was all the time to be heard. You could see all kinds of games and chicken fights in the streets, playing 'seven-up' on bales of cotton. Money was so plentiful around Natchez, you might pick it up most any moment on the streets, and murders innumerable. Notwithstanding, it was a great trading-point, and you could see an acre of flatboats lying at the wharf all the time, all selling as fast as the customers could be waited on."[3]: 112
Sexton's records for Natchez show that in addition to the Forks of the Road slave market just outside of town there were occasional slave traders operating at Natchez Under the Hill.[4]
The district's primary historic assets are the Natchez landing site ("Under the Hill") and, on the bluff above, a city park area which includes the site of the second French Fort Rosalie, built during 1730–34. The landing site area was where the Natchez Trace began. The area was frequented by gamblers, river pirates, highwaymen, and prostitutes and was described, in 1810, as a place such that "'...for the size of it, there is not, perhaps in the world, a more dissipated spot.'"[2]: 11 The fort was renamed Fort Panmure by the British after they took possession following the 1756-1763 Seven Years' War, then later fell into ruin. In 1971, the district area included six "dilapidated" brick buildings on Silver Street of uncertain age.[2]
The Fort Rosalie portion of the district is included in the Natchez National Historical Park.
A map delineating the district appears on page 15 in its NRHP nomination document.[2]: 15
References
edit- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ a b c d Dawn Maddox (August 31, 1971). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Natchez Bluffs and Under-the-Hill Historic District". National Park Service. and accompanying seven photos from 1971-72
- ^ Daniels, Capt. Wilson (June 1915). Barba, Preston A. (ed.). "Steam-boating on the Ohio and Mississippi Before the Civil War". Indiana Magazine of History. XI (2). Indiana University Press: 99–127. ISSN 0019-6673. JSTOR 27785676. OCLC 61313105.
- ^ http://www.natchezbelle.org/adams-ind/unknownsexton.txt
External links
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Media related to Natchez Bluffs and Under-the-Hill Historic District at Wikimedia Commons
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