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NATCHEZ — Kathleen Bond, the superintendent of the Natchez National Historic Park, provided an update on happenings at the Natchez Visitors Center and at the Forks of the Road site to the Mayor and Board of Aldermen on Tuesday night.

Both of those properties were donated to the National Park Service by the City of Natchez.

The city donated the visitors’ center, located at the intersection of John R. Junkin Road and Canal Street, to the National Parks Service in 2020. It donated city-owned property at the Forks of the Road site to the National Park Service in 2021, Bond said.

“With the transition to the new administration, I am happy to report our park staffing levels are stable. That is not the situation with others. A lot of others are in a world of hurt,” she said.

The Visitors Center remained closed for construction.

“We have installed speed bumps to slow down those speeding through the driveway to avoid that traffic light,” Bond said. “The staff is pressure washing the concrete surfaces and it looks nice out there. We hope to reopen the building in late 2026. We have the funding in place to complete the interior renovations.

The National Parks Service has spent $500,000 on a new roof on the building and $4.5 million on a new air conditioning system. Bond said more than a million will be spent renovating the interior of the building.

“We hope to have something wonderful when we finish so we can be part of the America 250 celebration with new exhibits that tie into that theme of freedom and liberty. Natchez has examples of the best and worst of those things. We are all about telling the truth,” she said.

Bond informed the aldermen that the National Park Service is still working to acquire land near the Forks of the Road site, located in the area of D’Evereux Drive and St. Catherine Street.

“We have acquired the historic O’Ferrell House and the city-owned property that was donated and pieces of property on either side of the O’Ferrell House, going back to the radio station property,” she said. “Our negotiations are with the radio station and the Jehovah’s Witnesses Temple. The National Parks Foundation has received a $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to acquire property so as you can see this has national and international eyes on it.”

Listen Up Y’all Media owns the radio station. Margaret Perkins is its president and CEO. The church is the Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Bond said the RAISE grant — a $26-plus million grant awarded to the City of Natchez by the U.S. Department of Transportation for the Forks to Freedom property — has been paused.

She said those funds would be used for the preservation of the historic bridge on the site that enslaved people were forced to cross to arrive at the site of the slave market.

Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said, while the grant is paused, “We are hearing good results from our friends in Washington who are confident the funding will be restored,” and the grant will go forward.

The Forks of the Road site was the second-largest market for enslaved people in the United States during the 1800s, preceding the Civil War.