News Release

New Self-Guided Tour Signs installed at Melrose

Self Guided Tour Sign

NPS

News Release Date: May 19, 2021

Contact: Jeff Mansell, [phone] Ext 22

National Park Service News Release

For Immediate Release: May 19, 2021
Contact: [e-mail], 601-442-7049, ext. 22

New Tour Signs at Melrose!

Contractors are installing new self-guided tour signs across the Melrose landscape this week. Each of the 19 small panels contains a unique QR code that takes visitors to Natchez National Historical Park’s webpage when scanned with a cell phone camera. At the webpage, visitors can see historic photos and read or listen to the narration of a script that tells about that specific site, building, or landscape feature.

Created between 1841 and 1848, Melrose is a quintessential Natchez suburban estate, and the main house has been called “One of the great houses of the American South.” A National Historic Landmark, the 80-acre estate was once home to a wealthy white planter family and 22 enslaved people of African descent whose labor supported them. In addition to the brick main house, the estate contains an important collection of original outbuildings, as well as extensive gardens and a restored orchard. Accessible pathways lead visitors through the historic core of the estate.

Park staff began crafting a QR code-based experience of the estate grounds shortly after tours of the main house were discontinued in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This self-guided tour focuses largely on the daily life “behind the big house.” The codes were originally mounted on temporary sandwich boards, but the tour proved so popular that park staff decided to make the exhibit permanent. The park is presently developing plans for reopening the main house at Melrose for guided tours this summer. In the meantime, visitors can continue to enjoy and learn about the estate through the new signage dotting the landscape. Come see for yourself!

Located at 1 Melrose-Montebello Parkway in Natchez, Mississippi, the Melrose grounds are open seven days per week from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, and there is no admission charge. Updates will be available on the park’s website at www.nps.gov/natc and on the park Facebook page. Visitors can also call the Melrose desk at 601-446-5790.
 

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