Natchez Bluffs and Under-the-Hill Historic District

About this property

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. The name Natchez-Under-the-Hill may date to the days of British West Florida, as the name form is "so unlike American patterns" whereas English placenames abound in constructions like Stratford-Upon-Avon and Stow-on-the-Wold. 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. By the time Natchez became part of the Mississippi Territory in 1798, the under-hill district supported a racetrack and a diverse population of arrivals from Africa, the United States, France, Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Sexton's records for Natchez show that, in addition to the Forks of the Road slave market just outside of town, slave traders occasionally operated at Natchez Under the Hill. 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.'" A Kentuckian who arrived in Natchez in 1810 stated at a tavern below the hill, which was aptly named The Kentuckian; he described the main room as "crowded in every corner...with sons of riot and dissipation." 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. 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. The majority of the early Jewish immigrants to Natchez arrived from Alsace–Lorraine and the Kingdom of Bavaria around the 1840s and 1850s, and they gravitated toward merchant roles in dry goods and clothing in the neighborhood of Natchez Under-the-Hill. Media related to Natchez Bluffs and Under-the-Hill Historic District at Wikimedia Commons

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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