Get ready for some fascinating mental travels through Natchez history at the eighth biennial Historic Natchez Conference this week!

Some of the most colorful local history comes to light in the student sessions that will be held at the Eola Hotel on Thursday at 10 a.m. and at a lunchtime workshop at NAPAC on Friday.

At 1 p.m. Thursday at the Eola, Aaron Anderson and Deanne Nuwer will look at post-Civil War Natchez merchants and at yellow fever epidemics. A session on the Southern Jewish experience will follow at Temple B’nai Israel at 3 p.m.

A free cocktail reception at the Natchez Visitor Center from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday celebrates 10 years of the partnership facility as well as 20 years of Natchez National Historical Park. The ribbon will be cut on new National Park Service exhibits at 5:30 p.m. Back at the Eola, a 7 p.m. session will explore park growth and changes in the interpretation of Natchez history over the past 20 years.

Friday morning is for archeology, beginning at the Eola at 9 a.m. with student presentations on mound sites in Jefferson and Warren counties by Meg Kasenbaum and Lauren Downs. At 10:30 a.m., Brad Lieb of the Chickasaw Nation and Vincas Steponaitis of the University of North Carolina will address the diaspora of the Natchez Indians and early attempts to map the Mississippi Valley.

On Friday afternoon the venue shifts to Trinity Episcopal Church, where at 2:30 p.m. Edward Bond of Alabama A&M University and the University of the South, and the Rev. Brooks Graebner of Hillsborough, N.C., will provide updates regarding their ongoing research into the Episcopal Church and slavery in Mississippi – with a special focus on William Mercer Green, the first bishop of the diocese. Comments will follow by the Rev. Walter Brownridge of the University of the South.

At 5 p.m. on Friday, the First Presbyterian Church welcomes all to enjoy light refreshments and see the new church history exhibit as well as the display of the Norman photographic collection. A Civil War session will follow in the church at 6 p.m, with Joyce Broussard of California State University – Northridge discussing Natchez women during the war, and Michael Ballard of Mississippi State University examining the papers of U.S. Grant, now at MSU. At 7:30 p.m. a cocktail buffet will welcome visitors to the “Journey Stories” exhibit at the Historic Natchez Foundation.

The Natchez Civil Rights Movement takes center stage at the Eola on Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m., with Lance Hill’s talk on the Deacons for Defense followed by Ed Pincus’s documentary film, “Black Natchez.” The 11 a.m. session will feature new Natchez-related collections at university archives. Teri Tillman will conduct a genealogy workshop at the Armstrong Library at 2 p.m.

The conference closes Saturday night with a 6 p.m. cocktail buffet at Brandon Hall celebrating the house’s donation to support historic preservation and honoring the Natchez Trace Parkway. For more information, call 601-442-2500 or visit www.natchez.org. All conference lectures are free.

Kathleen Jenkins is Superintendent of Natchez National Historical Park.