By Roscoe Barnes III The Natchez Democrat
Published Sunday, December 29, 2024
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 | | Katie Blount, director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, recently announced major plans for historic sites in Natchez and other locations. (Click on image to enlarge.) |
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NATCHEZ, Miss. -- Katie Blount, director of the
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, announced major plans for
multiple historic sites in 2025 -- and later -- that include Windsor Ruins, the
Grand Village of the Natchez Indians, and Historic Jefferson College, among
others.
The Grand Village will be renamed the Natchez Tribal
History Center. Windsor Ruins will have new signs and a new interpretation, and
Jefferson College will be restored and serve as an interpretive center and
preservation field school.
Blount also outlined plans for the Margaret Ann Crigler
Park, which will be adjacent to the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, the
Vicksburg Civil War Project, and an exhibit in 2025 that commemorates the 20th
anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Blount shared her vision for these sites during a
December 18 media roundtable in Jackson. She told the press that Mississippi
has important stories to tell and there is a growing number of people who want
to hear those stories. This growing interest is having a positive impact on
tourism, she said.
“We are moving around the state ensuring that our most
important stories are told in all their complexity and that we're reaching a
broader audience with these stories,” Blount said.
She also noted: “I think that there is a consensus among
leadership, local and state in this state, that tourism is on the rise for
Mississippi and that we have important stories to tell and that people will
come and that we'll all have a better understanding of who we are and where
we've come from.”
Windsor Ruins
“When we opened the Two Museums in 2017, we knew that our
next priority really needed to be our sites around the state,” Blount said,
noting the sites around the state needed MDAH’s attention.
Attention was first given to Windsor Ruins in rural
Claiborne County. Blount said the columns were in danger of falling. But thanks
to the state legislature, funds were provided through the Community Heritage
Preservation Grant program that allowed them to acquire specialists to
stabilize the columns and restore the capitals at the top of the columns. The
work is now done, she said.
Research and archaeological work has been done at the
site to uncover the stories of the enslaved people who lived and worked at
Windsor. A new interpretation of the site will be announced early next year.
New signs will go up at the site around the beginning of 2025.
Grand Village
Blount said their next priority was the Grand Village, a
National Historic Landmark site that the department has owned since the 1970s.
“It’s highly significant, and we had done very little to expand or update the
initial interpretation from the ‘70s,” she said. “So we're building a new
museum there and a new outdoor pavilion. And we are we're going to add walking
trails.”
She noted all of the exhibits and interpretation will be
new. In addition to the citizens of Natchez, MDAH is working with scholars of
Native American history in Mississippi and their tribal partners, she said,
adding the lead tribal partner is the Muscogee.
The new Grand Village should open in 2028, and when it
opens, it will be known as the Natchez Tribal History Center. Blount said their
native partners felt it was time to change the name. “’Grand Village’ is what
the French knew the site as,” she said. “It’s not really a village.”
According to Blount, “Mississippi has more interesting,
consequential, complex history than any other state.” She said one of the most
important ways to tell the stories of the people and what happened here is to
preserve the places where they happened.
Jefferson College
Next on MDAH’s list of priorities is Jefferson College,
which Blount described as “the birth place of statehood, where the delegates
first gathered to write the first state constitution.”
The college was the state's first institution of higher
learning before the public universities opened. It also served briefly as a
Freedman's Bureau after the Civil War. In addition to restoring the school’s
eight historic buildings, plans include work on the roofs, windows and
interiors, and the opening of an interpretive center.
The center, she said, will tell the stories that are
central to the history of Natchez and to the country. These stories will focus
on the cotton boom, slavery, Civil War, Reconstruction, and the aftermath of
Reconstruction up to the Civil Rights Movement.
The establishment of a historic preservation field school
will be another feature of Jefferson College. It will be a place where students
can come from area universities, as well as Natchez Adams School District, to
get hands-on training in historic preservation trades.
Blount said that while MDAH will continue to work on its
programs, including the preservation field schools, “the work on the buildings
will take years” to complete. She said it is important to get the buildings in
shape before they place exhibits inside.
Projected costs
When asked about the amount of money being spent on the
various projects, Blount provided projected costs for each of them.
Since Windsor Ruins is done, there is no need for more
funding of the project, she said. And because some of the funds have already
been placed into the Grand Village, its total will be less than $25 million.
Total cost for the work at Jefferson College “remains to be seen,” as MDAH is
just beginning the restoration of the building, Blount said.
Blount said the total cost for the projects will include
funds they already have on hand. She explained that the money will come in from
state, local, and federal government and from private donors.
Blount thanked the State Legislature for providing
support of all of the projects.
Hurricane Katrina
Near the end of the meeting, Michael Morris, executive
director of the Two Museum, announced plans to tell the story of Hurricane
Katrina. He said it was an important event that impacted people in Mississippi
and Louisiana.
On May 8, 2025, a photographic exhibit on Hurricane
Katrina will be displayed at the Two Museums. The photographs were taken by
Melody Golding, who is a photographer who's worked with the Smithsonian
Institution and etcetera, Morris said. A number of programs on the topic will
be held throughout the year, he said.
