Natchez residents care about their community.

Natchez residents’ love of community is evidenced by their participation in community events, whether Friday night high school football games, national nights out for crime or town hall meetings.

Not only do Natchez residents care about such organizational meetings and community events, they also care about the city’s physical structures.

Natchez is among a handful of historic Southern cities that retain a large number of historic structures. Among those cities are New Orleans, Savannah, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, and Port Gibson, just to our north.

That is pretty good company, and is reason to be proud. Also, the historic structures are a drawing card for Natchez’s tourism. Natchez residents’ love of those historic structures is clearly evident as the community mourns the damage to the historic Prentiss Club building that was severely damaged in a Sunday morning fire.

While the Prentiss Club building is not a pre Civil War structure, the building, built in 1904-1905, is a shining example of Second Renaissance Revival-style architecture as described in the building’s 1979 application for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Natchez firefighters made a heroic effort to save the building Sunday as residents watched and rooted them on, and in the days since the Sunday fire, many have posted tributes to the building on social media and acknowledged personal connections to the building. No one, however, is more devastated by the loss than Fred and Melinda Kent who were nearing completion of the building’s renovation after purchasing it last May, and they had hoped it would become a signature place for museum shows and events in Natchez.

Their sorrow, they say, has been assuaged by the outpouring of support, condolences and well-wishes they have received from Natchez residents and natives from near and far. We hope that outpouring gives them solace as they weigh the future.

Regardless of their final decision on the building’s future, we are sure they will have the community’s support and admiration for what they had hoped to achieve with the historic Prentiss Club building.