Bluff Park and North Broadway Street
Natchez Trails
The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad built the passenger station on the bluff shortly after 1910, and the Illinois Central Railroad was the last railroad to own it. Like many smal towns across America, Natchez lost passenger service as the Automobile Age reached full maturity. By the end of World War II, passenger trains no longer stopped in Natchez. Abandoned railroad stations have been a primary focus of "adaptive reuse," a preservation movement to use old buildings for purposes other than those originally intended. This station became a restaurant in the mid-1970s.
About 1890, grocers and cotton factors Samuel Geisenberger and Joseph Friedler built a large warehouse adjacent to the railroad on Broadway Street. Both were second generation Jewish businessmen. Callon Petroleum Company bought the historic Geisenberger and Friedler building added a third story, and renovated the building to serve as company headquarters in the mid-1980s.
The Natchez Cotton Mill, built in 1872, sat on the site of the hotel built in 2007 that faces Broadway, and the nearby Rosalie Cotton Mill soon followed. The mills reflected local efforts to expand the region's economy beyond growing and ginning cotton to manufacturing cotton. These efforts also included cotton seed oil mills. In 1887, a boiler explosion killed five workers in the Natchez Cotton Mill. Neither of the downtown cotton mills exist today, but the small houses built for workers survive in the area of Madison, North Wall, and Maple Streets. The 1907 arrival of the boll weevil and the Great Depression ended the city's efforts to develop cotton industries.
The Natchez Rotary Club installed the fountain in the Bluff Park in 1969 in honor of the club's fiftieth anniversary.
Erected by City
this page online
Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Roads & Vehicles • Settlements & Settlers. In addition, it is included in the Mississippi - Natchez Trails series list.
Location. 31° 33.775′ N, 91° 24.322′ W. Marker is in Natchez, Mississippi, in Adams County. It is at the intersection of North Broadway and Franklin Street, on the right when traveling south on North Broadway. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Natchez MS 39120, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in Southwest Mississippi and in Natchez Trace Corridor. It is also in the American South, specifically in the Deep South, and in the Great River Road Region. Globally, it is in North America, a Gulf of Mexico state, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once New Spain, the Viceroyalty of New France, the territory of the Mississippian Culture, one of the Confederate States of America, and the Antebellum South.
Other nearby markers. At least 8
Credits. This page was last revised on June 5, 2018. It was originally submitted on June 5, 2018, by Cajun Scrambler of Assumption, Louisiana. This page has been viewed 590 times since then and 26 times this year. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on June 5, 2018.
