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Pilgrimage Guide
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It All Started After a Hard Freeze at Natchez...
By Herb Phillips
ilgrimage is defined by Webster’s as "a journey, especially a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of devotion." In the South the word has become synonymous with the seasonal openings to the public of those glorious edifices to a "Gone With The Wind" past-antebellum mansions. Pilgrimage has spread to cities and hamlets throughout the states of the old Confederacy and even beyond, spurring tourism and economies all along the way.
The whole business began in Mississippi during Dixie’s darkest days since the Civil War and Reconstruction. I'he Great Depression racked the land and the old mansions were suffering the same neglect as everything else a moneyless society. Though paint was fading and facades were crumbling, the matrons of many of the grand homes of Natchez tended their gardens and grounds with true grit. They intended to show them off with planned tours when their Natchez Garden Club hosted a state convention of garden groups in the early spring of 1932. Then, just days before the fete and as the gardens burst into full bloom, a late terrible freeze wiped them out to the last bud.	v
What to do? All seemed lost until Katherine Grafton Miller strongly crusaded for opening the mansions, dilapidated or not, to the visitors. They were opened, it was an astounding success, and Pilgrimage was born.
Following in Natchez’s footsteps are many Mississippi towns and areas. All offer tours of historical homes and buildings, and most have other attractions as well. This Pilgrimage Guide is designed to make it convenient for you to plan a visit to any and all of Mississippi’s Spring 1993 Pilgrimage events.
Wallpaper border detail from The Natchez Collection by F. Schumacher and Company.
MISSISSIPPI 5A