The Great War and Natchez, Adams County,
Mississippi
Institute Hall
Many men, both black and white, from Natchez and Adams County, Mississippi, served in the armed forces during the first World War, often called "The Great War". This was during the Jim Crow era, with racial segregation throughout the south and in the armed forces. The photo below is of the old Institute Hall on Pearl Street in downtown Natchez. The Hall, built around 1850 as a school auditorium, outlasting the institute it was created to serve. It had many lives over the years, not the least of which was as an Armory during the civil war and after World War I. By the time of the First World War it housed the city library and post war, the newly minted American Legion post offices. 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 518 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 large plaques 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 reads:
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 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, some 961 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 enlisted in a combat regiment, with one killed on the front lines by shellfire.
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. In october 2007 I read in the Natchez Democrat that work on the hall to convert it into a new Federal Courthouse has been completed and that the plaques have been taken out of storege and put back up. The photo below shows the Hall as a courthouse. The photo was taken by Luke Horton for the Natchez Democrat. please see the full story in the Democrat.
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