Saturday will mark the 102nd birthday of the National Park Service — dating to the 1916 signing of the Organic Act that created a system of national parks in this country “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner … as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

To celebrate the NPS birthday, please join the staff of Natchez National Historical Park for cake and ice cream in the lobby of the Natchez Visitor Center at 1 p.m. on Friday.

Mississippi sites that are part of the National Park Service include the Natchez Trace Parkway (with the Tupelo and Brice’s Crossroads battlefields), the Vicksburg National Military Park, the Ocean Springs unit of Gulf Islands National Seashore, and the Corinth unit of Shiloh National Military Park. Legislation has been introduced to add the Medgar and Myrlie Evers House in Jackson as well.

“Our national parks preserve the broad expanse of our nation’s heritage and celebrate its most basic values,” said Natchez National Historical Park Superintendent Kathleen Bond. “Together they make up our nation’s largest system of education, preservation, conservation and recreation, and they are owned by the American people.”

The local sites that comprise Natchez National Historical Park include the Melrose estate, the William Johnson House and the Fort Rosalie site. Within the next year, the Natchez Visitor Center and parcels at the Forks of the Road slave market are scheduled to join that list.

Since Natchez NHP first began operations at Melrose in 1990, the park has worked to raise the standard for the preservation and interpretation of history in Natchez, and to present a high-quality visitor experience for tourists to our town. We look forward to improving the Natchez Visitor Center as a destination and to creating products that will raise the national understanding of the Forks of the Road story.

The sites of Natchez National Historical Park are open seven days a week (except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day). Guided tours of the Melrose mansion are available at the top of each hour from 10 a.m. through noon, and 1 to 4 p.m. Admission to the grounds and slave cabin exhibits at Melrose are always free, as are the self-guided tours of the William Johnson House. The grounds of Fort Rosalie are open each day from dawn until dusk.

This week, celebrate your American heritage by taking part in a bit of American history, learn about the diversity of Natchez culture at our Natchez sites, drive up the historic route of the Natchez Trace Parkway, walk the solemn hills of a Civil War battlefield or enjoy Mother Nature down on the coast at Gulf Islands.

Come out and enjoy one of your nearby National Parks. For more information call 601-446-5790 or go to www.nps.gov/natc.

Kathleen Bond is Superintendent of Natchez National Historical Park.