Day 4: Natchez MS

Today is a non-travelling day.  Hurrah!  Originally the first destination was to be the Old River Control Structure (see below) but while looking for it on the map I noticed this:

was only a couple of miles further on.  There's apparently 200-odd of these markers dotted around the south - mostly in Mississippi but some not. Shortly afterwards Thee Playlist ov Doom fired Honeydripper by Mr Guy and frequent harmonica-bothering collaborator Junior Wells at me.  Yay!

The Mississippi has historically been wont to change its course, leaving odd bits of some states on the opposite side of the river from the majority, because the state line runs down the centre of the river where it was in 18-mumble, not where it is now.  And if left to its own devices, it would likely forsake its current course and turn sharp right down the Old and Atchafalaya Rivers, because that's the shortest route to the sea.  A good deal of time, effort, and money has gone into the creation of the ports of Baton Rouge, South Louisiana and New Orleans so having the main flow of the river go somewhere else would definitely not enhance shareholder value.  Hence the US Army Corps of Engineers built the Old River Control Structure to keep the Mississippi on track and only letting a small proportion of its water take the scenic route.  Plus when the main river floods - which it is somewhat prone to doing - the excess can be diverted.

Lock allows boat traffic to pass between the Old River and the Mississippi

Main sluices

All the above is own the Louisiana side of the river; Natchez is connected to Vidalia LA by this rather fine pair of bridges:

In the shade at the Vidalia end

From the bluffs in Natchez

Time for a saunter around bits of Natchez.  The place was originally founded by the French, got rich on cotton^[1] and quickly surrendered to the Union during the Civil War, thus avoiding being blown to bits and leaving an extraordinary number of intact antebellum houses, such as this imposing pile:

Rosalie, used for a while as Ulysses S. Grant's HQ

Also intact is the area on the river bank itself:

Formerly a wretched hive of scum and villainy, now a wretched hive of bars, restaurants, B&B's and gift shops.

The place is also the setting of a Several of thrillers by lawyer-turned-novelist Greg Iles, mostly featuring lawyer-turned-novelist Penn Cage righting wrongs and overcoming a selection of deeply unpleasant baddies.  Mr Cage lived here:

Swiss-stylee architecture, it sez 'ere

In reality it's an AirBnB and is up for sale.  Roughly 1.75 million of your Earth dollars.  This vvvv:

The Turning Angel

also features in some, or more, of Mr Iles' books.  It supposedly appears to turn if you drive past it at night but I was unable to test this theory because I was there at lunchtime.

Last port of call before collapsing in a heap was "The Grand Village of the Natchez Indians".  Unlike for e.g. that place in North Dakota I visited three years ago there's not a lot to see save two and a half mounds, of which this is the most impressive:

Mound, Natchez, Saturday

Unsurprisingly, the French settlers behaved like utter bastards to the locals who ultimately had enough and killed a couple of hundred settlers utterly to DETH. This did not, in the long term, help very much as Wikinaccurate can tell you.

1. Before the Civil War Natchez reportedly contained more millionaires than any other town in USAnia save New York