TUPELO, Miss.- Natchez Trace Parkway officials are trying to save eight historic cottages in Tupelo.
The National Park Service is hoping to lease, ranging from three years to 60 years. The buildings cannot be sold and they cannot be moved.
Tours of the cottages listed on the National Register of Historic Places will be offered later this month.
They were built in 1936 by the Resettlement Administration as a subsistence colony.
The colony originally had 35 homesteads on 171 acres, each with about three acres. The parkway has been renovating similar cottages on the west side of Mississippi Highway 145 and using them as offices. Most of the houses on the east side of the highway have been vacant for years.
Chris Smith, Culture Resource Specialist with the Natchez Trace says leasing the cottages themselves is the first step for a bigger plan. They’ve put out a request of interest to the public to see if anyone would be interested in leasing the cottages. Once they receive public interest they will put together a formal proposal to save the cottages long term.
Anyone interested in leasing one of the cottages can visit the link below and fill out a Request For Expressions of Interest (RFEI).
http://concessions.nps.gov/news_SER_NATR_RFEI.htm
