The Great War and Natchez, Adams County,
Mississippi
Institute Hall
Many men,(and few women) from Natchez and Adams County, Mississippi, served in the armed forces during the first World War during the years 1917-1918. This was during the Jim Crow era, with racial segregation throughout the south and in the armed forces. The photos below show the trasformation of the old Institute Hall on Pearl Street in downtown Natchez into a new United States Courthouse, with a monument to the men and women from Adams county that served in the War retained though the years bolted to the old hall.
The hall was built around 1850 as a school auditorium, and outlasted the institute it was created to serve. It had many uses over the years, not the least of which was as an Armory during the Civil War and World War I. At one time it housed the city library and the American Legion post. After years of fundraising, often with events staged in the old hall, a memorial was bolted to the square columns to rename it Memorial Hall in 1924. In the photo below, taken before stabilization work in 2004-2005, the squares on the building are the tarnished plates of the memorial to 523 white men and women who served in the war, with a star by the name of nine people who died doing uniformed service during the years 1917-1919. The four plaques forming a row are the name plates with the smallest and largest describing as well as naming the memorial.
The tablet that informally re-named Institute Hall, bolted over the doorway in 1924 read:
A smaller plaque, seen to the left of the door, notes who created the monument
My own Masters Thesis deals with who served in the war, both black and white, and what happened to them after the war. A federal roster of men who enroled in Adams County shows some 581 Black men entered the Army from the county, not counting the greater Natchez "Metro" area. A movement to add the names to the monument or retire the old monument and create a new one seems to have both local and federal support. If this change does come, it is thought that Febrary would be the best month to do it. As to what year this might be done has not yet been made clear.
A web site that deals with the 1924 list of names can be found at, http://www.natchezbelle.org/adams-ind/ww1-1.htm . World War I Service Men and Women from Adams County, Mississippi on the NatchezBell.org site. According to state of Mississippi records, almost 1,000 men, both black and white, entered military Service from Adams County. Yet not all the people who served in the war who came from Natchez, the seat of Adams County, enrolled in the county or for that matter, in the state. Some men came from Concordia Parish, just across the Mississippi river from Natchez, and still more men wound up leaving the state to enlist in other units. Two of these out of state units were black National Guard regiments that fought in France, the 370th and the 369th. At least four black men from Natchez were in combat, with one man, First Sgt. James C. Minor, killed on the front lines by shellfire, and two badly wounded in combat. The best count from state records shows some 581 black men entered the Army from Adams County during 1917-1918. A survey of nearby Natchez National (miltary) Cemetery suggests that some 200 black Army Troopers came back to live in Adams County after the war.
The four plaques that list the names are quite large, and when mounted on the old hall they are each the size of refrigerator door. To get some idea of what they look like you can bring up a photo of the list of names to the left of the Servce Star plaque by clicking on names. By october 2007 work to convert the hall it into a new Federal Courthouse was completed, the plaques cleaned and put back up. The photo below shows the hall as a courthouse.
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