Natchez — A new photographic display from the Mississippi Department of Archives & History, “A River Unleashed: the 1927 Mississippi River Flood” is on display at Copiah-Lincoln Communtiy College Natchez campus. The photo display details through photographs, maps, quotes and captions the catastrophic event.

The exhibit opened on Jan. 11 and closes March 3. Library hours are 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and until 2:30 p.m. on Fridays.

The flood began when heavy rains pounded the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September, the Mississippi’s tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On New Year’s Day of 1927, the Cumberland River at Nashville topped levees.

The Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles. This water flooded an area 50 miles wide and more than 100 miles long. The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet.

The flood caused more than $400 million in damages, affected seven states, displaced more than 700,000 people and killed hundreds.