Natchez Under-the-Hill is the historic commercial area and riverfront below the bluff where the first semblance of a town developed. In 1779, it consisted of ten log houses and two frame houses. Silver Street, the main commercial street, was laid out by the Spanish c. 1790 to link the town above to the river below. The domain of boatmen, taverns, and brothels, Natchez Under-the-Hill was described by travel writer William Richardson as the “most licentious” spot on the Mississippi River in his Journal from Boston to the Western Country and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, 1815–1816.
Today, Natchez Under-the-Hill is the port for cruise boats that tour the river. All the buildings along Silver Street postdate 1840, when a tornado nearly leveled Under-the-Hill. Three are antebellum buildings (21, 27, and 33 Silver) and exhibit the common pre-Civil War commercial form with end-gable roofs and repeating first-story bays of double-leaf doors with glazed upper panels. The building at 25 Silver (c. 1875) features the characteristic parapet facade of postbellum commercial architecture. All feature either a double-tiered gallery or cantilevered balcony.