Historic Jefferson College Comprehensive Plan Request for Qualifications & Bid

MDAH has plans to reopen Historic Jefferson College as a gateway to Natchez museum. Planning for an exterior restoration of the historic buildings on campus is underway. MDAH is ready to develop a new comprehensive plan. Our interpretive idea is to focus on the development and immense growth of the cotton kingdom in the region with its reliance on the institution of slavery.

This work at HJC is part of larger initiative as MDAH is working with regional partners to tell a broader story and reach a wider audience. MDAH has undertaken a project to stabilize the columns at nearby Windsor Ruins and is raising funds to build a new museum at Grand Village of the Natchez Indians, a National Historic Landmark mound site. New interpretation and promotion will increase visitation at both of these sites. The National Park Service is improving sites in the region including the Forks of the Road slave market and Vicksburg National Military Park and is studying the possibility of establishing a new park comprising civil rights sites throughout Mississippi

MDAH has partnered with the Historic Natchez Foundation to conduct an architectural survey of 19th-century outbuildings (primarily slave quarters) throughout Adams County. This survey will provide a rich source of information on the lives and work of enslaved people in this area. From this information, we can develop exhibits, programs, educational materials, and other resources broadening and enriching our perspective on the history of Natchez and Adams County.

Through these related initiatives (paired with the success of the new Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson), southwest Mississippi is poised to become a national center for study and heritage tourism. You cannot understand American history without understanding Mississippi’s stories, and you cannot understand Mississippi’s stories unless you experience them in person.