Natchez Steamboat Landing

The boats at the foot of Silver Street are not a photo-op novelty. The American Queen and American Duchess dock here at river level, bringing 200-plus cruise passengers up the bluff into Natchez Under-the-Hill. The paddlewheel steamboat era built this city — cotton barons and flatboat merchants made Natchez one of the wealthiest cities in America before the Civil War. The boats never really stopped coming. On May 7, 1840, a tornado formed twenty miles southwest of Natchez and followed the Mississippi River directly into the landing. It tossed 116 of the 120 flatboats docked that day into the river. The steamboat Hinds was blown into the water and capsized; four survived. The wreck drifted downstream and was recovered at Baton Rouge two weeks later with fifty-one bodies aboard. The Prairie's upper deck was blown off, and passengers and crew were thrown into the river and drowned. The St. Lawrence was lifted out of the water and dashed to the bottom. At Natchez Landing, the destruction of dwellings, stores, steamboats, and flatboats was almost complete. Two hundred sixty-nine people died on the river. Forty-eight died on land. Natchez Under-the-Hill was demolished entirely, except for one house. The city rebuilt. Sir Charles Lyell, visiting Natchez later in the 1840s, wrote that the tornado checked the city's progress as severely as the removal of the state capital to Jackson. The 1840s became a decade of repair. Natchez Under-the-Hill was almost totally rebuilt. The landing is active. Check the American Queen Steamboat Company's Natchez port schedule online. Walk down Silver Street from downtown — five minutes, free to visit.