NATCHEZ, Miss. – Mayor Dan Gibson returned Tuesday from a Washington, D.C., visit that he said was “very, very productive” as he met with U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, congressional staffers and others.
The mayor also met with the French, British and Spanish ambassadors to the U.S. for discussing their countries’ historical ties to Natchez.
The six-day trip included discussions about renovating the Eola hotel and developing Natchez sites honoring Black Civil War Union soldiers and the country’s first Black member of Congress.
City officials are seeking federal funds to help pay for a monument commemorating Black troops who served in Natchez when the Union occupied the town beginning in 1863.
A landscaped memorial is also being planned for Hiram Revels, the U.S. senator from Natchez who served as the first Black member of Congress in 1870-71 when Mississippi was readmitted into the United States after the Civil War.
Meeting with aldermen on Wednesday, Gibson formally signed documents to apply for a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. A Jackson-based engineering firm has been hired to plan and design Hiram Revels Plaza.
The request for DOT funds is for enhancing a corridor of historic sites beginning at Devereaux Drive, past the former Forks of the Road slave market, intersecting with St. Catherine Street and extending to the Mississippi River bluff area on Broadway Street.
Government and private partners are planning to locate Hiram Revels Plaza on “The Triangle” at the intersection of St. Catherine, Martin Luther King and Jefferson streets. A statue of Revels is being envisioned there.
A public-private partnership is also planning the monument to honor more than 3,000 Black Union soldiers who served in Natchez. It’s to be located at the north end of Broadway Street in the large green lawn there.
The DOT funds being sought are from the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program.RAISE grants are provided for upgrading modes of transportation, but Gibson said the city’s application can be formulated for improving the Natchez byways’ infrastructure that could include money to help build the tributes to Revels and the Black Union soldiers. The area has been dubbed by the mayor as the “Forks to Freedom” historic corridor.
The mayor and aldermen have hired the Neal-Shaffer engineering firm to prepare the DOT grant application, which is due in February.
The design of the Black Union soldiers statue and surrounding plaza has been selected but not yet finalized. Estimates have it costing as much as $1 million to build.
Another Natchez development in the works is the renovation of the now-closed Eola hotel, the tallest commercial building in downtown Natchez. Gibson said he met last week in Washington with owner Robert Lubin of Virginia.
While costs have stalled the grand plans unveiled last year for restoring the vacant building as a hotel, Gibson said he’s hopeful “for really great things to happen in the new year.”
The Eola hotel — built in 1927 – closed in December 2014 and has since severely deteriorated.
In his meeting with the European ambassadors in Washington, Gibson said the Spanish and British emissaries accepted his invitations to visit Natchez like French Ambassador Philippe Etienne did in October. Natchez was founded by French settlers in 1716, taken over by Britain in 1763 and acquired by Spain in 1783 before eventually becoming part of the United States in 1798.
Gibson said French officials might review the Natchez land where Fort Rosalie once stood and make it one of the official French heritage sites France is developing in the United States.
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