Until Friday, the notion that Natchez was in the tourism business prior to the 1930s would have seemed at least a little outlandish to me.

But then, just like she’s done for years, Joan Gandy — former managing editor of The Democrat and the woman who first hired me here — taught me a lesson.

This time, however, Joan wasn’t even in the room. I was digging through one of the beautiful and informative books that she and her late husband Dr. Thomas Gandy compiled out of the life’s work of three Natchez photographers.

On page 98 of “Natchez Landmarks, Lifestyles and Leisure” Joan’s words surprised me.

In a description of a portrait of Maj. Thomas Grafton, the Gandys casually mentioned that Grafton, the editor of The Natchez Democrat in the 1890s, led a number of efforts to promote Natchez as a place to visit around the turn of the century. Apparently, Grafton helped produce some type of publications aimed at promoting Natchez, including photographs of its amazing architecture.

Interestingly, promoting Natchez must have been in the Grafton family’s genes as his granddaughter, Katherine Grafton Miller, was one of the principal founders of the Natchez Pilgrimage.

Perhaps that’s how the first guide to the Natchez Pilgrimage was created. This newspaper created that bit of tourism information, too.

Since that first pilgrimage edition, we’ve been helping to promote Natchez in many ways through the years, but almost all of them involved ink and paper.

Today our work toward promoting Natchez and the surrounding area took a decidedly modern turn. After nearly a decade of kicking the idea around as a “one day we’ll do that” dream, we’ve just launched a new Web site aimed at providing information to visitors and prospective visitors to the area.

Located at www.natchezontheriver.com the site is the culmination of years of work in gathering information. Much of that information often just “lived” in our computer archives until the next printed tourism publication came out.

For years, we’d always said, “One day, we’ll get all of this information online so others can see it anytime they’d like.”

I remember having a discussion with Joan Gandy about that very idea at least eight or 10 years ago.

Thanks to lots of hard work by our Web editor, the multi-talented Ben Hillyer, the site has a simple, but user-friend look about it. It’s not about flash and polish; it’s about offering up information about the area in a simple, but elegant manner.

The site includes lots if information about houses on tour all year round but it also includes lists of attractions, restaurants, accommodations and a calendar of events.

If you get a chance, please look through the site, and send us your thoughts on the site and anything you think we should add to help give would-be visitors a true picture of the community we all love and all call home.

The Web site’s content will continue to grow over time, but for now, it’s a great way to get more information in front of visitors, and that is just as important today as it was back in the 1890s.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.