Beautiful Homes of Natchez: Melrose

The first home we visited was Melrose, which is operated by the National Parks.  This is picture of the back and side of the house.  You can see they are in the process of painting the house, however, the ranger told us when they scraped off the old paint there was water damage and now...

as with many older homes.  A simple paint job has turned into a repair job of the beams that have rotted from the water.

This was the laundry and the dairy.  There were also apartments upstairs for the slaves. Across from the laundry was another structure that is now the Visitor's Center, but used to be the kitchen.  I don't seem to have a picture of it.

We had a wonderful tour guide, the best we had all week in Natchez at Melrose. 

This is the front entrance.

This is in the dining room.  It is called a punka.  It is a fan that a slave would operate by pulling the cord to keep the flies away from the food.  In the south it is known as a 'shoo fly fan."  Bet you can think of a song about this fan.

This home was owned by three different owners, but most of the furnishings are the originals.

This was the girls bedroom.  The boys were on the third floor in the attic.

All the beds were feather beds and were difficult to make each day.

So at the foot of each bed, was a "day bed" for napping.  So the beds would only need to be made once a day.  From that the term day bed.  Did you know that?  I didn't, but we saw it in all the other houses in Natchez.  Good guide.

The grounds were beautiful as we walked down to the slave quarters.

There were two rooms in this house.  A picture of the kitchen is below.

A Visit to Natchez, MS

We visited the Visitor's Center and save a video on the history of Natchez.  We got tickets for 3 Annabela Home tours and a carriage tour.  We later went back and got tickets for the Home and Garden Show on the weekend.

This is William Johnson's Home, a free black man who was a writer and well respective businessman.  After our city tour, we will return to visit this museum, run by the National Parks.

This is a home for delinquent students, near the courthouse. Because of the actions of the Natchez Historical Society, anything built in the city must adhere to regulations in buildings, so that the city stay historically accurate in their buildings.

The Presbyterian Church.

And beautiful houses, after beautiful houses.

The train depot, which is now loft condos.

After our carriage tour, we headed to The Pig Out Inn for some BBQ.

We took a walk at the park along the Mississippi, to walk our lunch off.

Down the street, was the William Johnson's house. William Johnson was a barber, who was born into slavery but was freed by his father. His home was upstairs from the barber shop. Johnson kept a 16 year diary, which was later published as The Barber of Natchez.

Another Visit to the Stockyards

Our plans were to leave Dallas on Monday, so we needed to get one last visit in with the kids.  Heather and family were busy on Saturday, so we pick up Scot and headed to the stockyard to see the cattle drive.  Scot has lived in Fort Worth for two years but had not been to the cattle drive.

Of course there were cowboys to drive the cattle.

Since I would be here for Mother's Day.  We decided to go to Cooper's BBQ for an early Mother's Day lunch.

Across the street was a concert center called Billie Bob's.

After lunch we went to see the Cowboy Hall of Fame Museum.

Belt buckles for the winners.

Nolan Ryan is a member of the Hall of Fame.

There were a lot of vehicles from the past.  This is a mail wagon from Illinois.

A tribute to boots.

On Sunday, we headed to Heather's to say goodbye to the grand kids and of course Heather and Craig.

We will back the end of June to babysit.  Heather and Craig are going on a cruise for their 10th anniversary. Can't believe they have been married 10 years.  Boy we must be getting old.

A Visit to Fort Worth

We stay between Dallas and Fort Worth every

time we come to visit Heather and Scot, but we have done very little site seeing in Fort Worth.  Every trip we try to get some Fort Worth sites in, but until this visit we have been unsuccessful.

We headed to the Visitor Center and learned of a new memorial dedicated to John F. Kennedy.  He had stayed in Fort Worth the night before he was assassination  in Dallas.

We had lunch at Corner Bakery and then headed to the Stockyards. There is a cattle drive down the streets by the Stockyards at 11:30 am and 4:00 pm every day.  We missed the morning cattle drive and we had to get home to Pralines before 4.  So we would see that another day.

We parked between two brick buildings that we later learned were horse stables, built after a bad fire destroyed the wooden one.

We viewed the video in the Visitor's Center and then we crossed the street to see the Stockyard Exchange and the museum there.

Small museum but interesting.

Behind the museum was the stockyard.

They had a Cowboy Walk of Fame.

The train station was near the stockyard and had been turned into a shopping and resturant mall..

We will have to return another day.