Be prepared to roll with the punches and always remember to play to your strengths. Living by those two small, but important, pieces of advice has done Natchez well.

Through those lessons, our community is celebrating 75 years of the annual Spring Pilgrimage this year.

Many of us know the history of how it all began. Natchez was hosting a state garden club convention. Poor weather pushed the Natchez gentry to invite the visitors inside their historic houses rather than merely tour the gardens.

Visitors were greeted with fascinating history unseen anywhere else on earth.

The following year a formal Pilgrimage was planned and for the next seven and a half decades Pilgrimage has been an important part of our community’s economy, attraction and charm.

Today, our minds wander back and forth between the past and the future.

What would the Natchez Spring Pilgrimage founders think about today’s Pilgrimage? No doubt, they’d feel at home watching hostesses in period costume tour visitors. And, no doubt, they’d be impressed at the beautiful preservation and restoration work on some of the houses in recent years.

What would they think of the sheer numbers of visitors who come each year — in buses, riverboats and cars — to see the event they began in the heart of the Great Depression? We think they’d be impressed and thrilled at the years of success their creation has had.

Looking forward to the next 75 years, imagine Spring Pilgrimage 2082.

Perhaps visitors will fly private jets into the Natchez-Adams County Airport and catch a high-speed train into downtown.

No one knows for sure, but regardless of the changes in technology, Natchez’s Pilgrimage will continue to be a wonderful event because of the great, diverse community we call “home.”