Natchez National Historical Park invites everyone who has participated as a narrator in the park’s “Natchez History Minute” social media project this year to walk with park staff wearing a specially-designed commemorative tee-shirt in Natchez Heritage Holiday Parade starting at 4 p.m. Saturday.

The entire year of 2016 has been an extra special one in that we have been celebrating the Natchez Tricentennial (300th birthday) at the same time as the National Park Service Centennial (100th birthday).

The Natchez birthday is based on completion of the French Fort Rosalie on the bluff in 1716, and the National Park Service birthday is based on passage of the “Organic Act” in 1916 that created a system for national parks in the United States so that its national treasures could be “preserved unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Today, there are 411 national parks in this country, and two of them are in Natchez. Natchez National Historical Park exists entirely within the city of Natchez, and the Natchez Trace Parkway stretches 444 miles from Natchez to Nashville.

The Natchez History Minute project highlights the mission of Natchez National Historical Park to tell the stories of “all the peoples of Natchez,” and the project has been doing that all year — one minute at a time — on both Facebook and YouTube. Links to these segments can also be found daily at natchezdemocrat.com as well as natchezms300.com. We are rapidly approaching one million views for the Natchez History Minute, and it is accessed in 50 different countries.

Narrators for these minutes have been as diverse as former governors and mayors, our current Congressional delegation, city political and business leaders, celebrities, National Park Service and Natchez tourism staff, and more than 150 of our local school children.

Topics have been as broad as the 300-year expanse of Natchez history — American Indians, European colonists, enslaved Africans and all their descendants; writers, politicians, musicians, sports figures, educators and extraordinary Natchezians of all sorts. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get to them all!

As a special “thank you” for your participation in the Natchez History Minute project, commemorative long-sleeve tee shirts have been ordered by the Natchez Tricentennial for all the Natchez History Minute narrators to wear to the parade.

The Heritage Holiday parade will begin lining up on Broadway Street at 2 p.m. Saturday, and participants can pick up their tee-shirt to wear in the parade at the Natchez Grand Hotel in Conference Room A between 1 and 4 p.m. Saturday.

The parade route will be Broadway Street to Canal Street to Main Street to Rankin Street, back down Franklin Street to return to Broadway. It’s going to be a fun, special parade — we hope you’ll join us.

Jeff Mansell is the park historian for Natchez National Historical Park, and manager of the Natchez History Minute project. For more parade information or to schedule a T-shirt pick up, call the Natchez Tricentennial Office at 601-446-6345.