The Natchez Trace Parkway Information
This wilderness road now referred as the Old Natchez Trace was part of the nearly 500 mile wilderness road built and maintained by the fledgling continental government during the early 1800′s and used by travelers of all types.
Maintaining this roadway must have been a difficult if not seemingly a hopeless task. Today, when looking down the path, you may notice the large trees growing along the edge of a wide strip cleared for the path, one which has often sunken to ten or more feet deep.
These trees stand as a silent testimony to the unending struggle between man and nature, a struggle of man to alter and change, while nature endeavors to reclaim and restore itself.
However, before the Old Natchez Trace was even built by these moderns, there were others who used the same path, in fact, the original path is an Ancient Road.
Below at the
Roadpath History: can be found a concise history of some of those who came before as well as those who came during and after the building of the Old Natchez Trace.
Roadpath Description:
Roadpath Type:
National Parkway
Roadpath Total Length:
444 miles, 715 km
Roadpath Year Built:
Begun: 1938
Completed: 2005
Roadpath Use:
tourism, recreation
Limited Access, no commercial traffic.
Roadpath Waymark:
circular road signs, mile posts markers
Roadpath Location:
Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee
Roadpath Terminus Point (North):
Location:
Milepost 442, SH 100 near Nashville, Tennessee
Cordinates:
Elevation:
feet
Roadpath Terminus Point (South):
Location:
Milepost Zero, Natchez, Mississippi
Cordinates:
Elevation:
feet
Roadpath Highest Elevation:
feet,
Roadpath Lowest Elevation:
feet,
Geographical Region:
Coastal Plains, Mississippi
Geographical Region:
Coastal Plains, Alabama
Geographical Region:
Appalachian Mountains, Tennessee
(m0-maps-natcheztrace-map) Natchez Trace Parkway Map
Used for Thousands of Years
Once, a forest path way, believed to have been first created by animals as they walked about their haunts, which at this earliest time, the trace was a series of unattached trails through the wilderness forests.
The Ancient Road
Then, these trails were used and traveled upon by the
First Wayƒarers, who after crossing over the Beringia land bridge, began to explore a new territory, a new continent, and who also began to walk upon these trails now known as the trace. As these First Wayƒarers continue to travel upon the trace, in doing so, they most likely connected many of the independent trails into a few and eventually just one.
Becoming More Settled
In the course of time, the Wayƒarers Period yielded to the Woodland Period and these indigenous people developed tools, agriculture, and began to create pottery, while their nomadic lifestyles gave way to increasingly permanent settlements.
Many of the cultures in this area of the continent were involved in the building of geometric earthworks. All through these several periods, these indigenous people continued to use the interconnecting wilderness trails to form a trade route.
These early indigenous people settled into a region with relatively mild weather, an abundance of game and a long growing season. The combination of these above resources enabled these people to farm the land and establish permanent communities.
These are the communities of
mound builders who built the many mounds throughout the vast Mississippi valley and its tributaries from as far back as 2000 BCE up until as late as 1600 CE. These indigenous people developed trading routes, created and use trails over much of the same areas of the continent including the area of the modern day Natchez Trace.
Born on 27 October c. 1495 in the town of Jerez de los Caballeros, state of Extremadura, Spain, this explorer and conquistador led 620 Spanish and Portuguese volunteers averaging 24 years of age, first to Cuba and then onto the north American continent for a planned four year expedition.
On seven of King Charles ships loaded with tons of heavy armour and equipment, more than 500 livestock, including 237 horses and 200 pigs, they left Havana for their planned four-year continental expedition.
At mile marker 243.3 a display shows that Hermando De Soto crossed the Tombigbee River nearby, stopping in December 1540 to winter among the Chickasaw people. He later died along the Mississippi River at 42 years of age.
Choctaw, Chickasaws and Natchez
Before the time of the French settlement in the early 1700′s the Choctaw, Chickasaws, and Natchez native people were now living in the same land that their ancestors lived, areas which covered most of Mississippi and northern Alabama.
They too traveled the same foot paths across this areas including the path now known as the Natchez Trace. These indigenous people spoke the Muskogean language and descended from the sons of
Diklah, son of Joktan.
Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
La Salle arrive at the Gulf of Mexico after traveling south from Canada down the Mississippi river and on April 09, 1682, at the mouth of the Mississippi near Buras, Louisiana, he claimed the territory for France.
The French later arrived in the lower Mississippi valley in the early 1700′s and in 1714, the French had moved into the Red River area and founded Fort Saint Jean Baptist, also known as Fort des Natchitoches which is named after the Caddoan indigenous people living nearby in a village along the banks of the Red River. This fort was set up as a trading and military outpost to counter any Spanish incursions into French Territory and was the first permanent European settlement in the Louisiana territory.
Soon after, the French in 1716 founded a permanent settlement in the area now known as Natchez, Mississippi. Two years after that in 1718, New Orleans, Louisiana was founded at which time there were only 700 Europeans in the lower Mississippi river area. However, the French Mississippi Company soon brought 800 more to colonize the new territory.
Said to be the oldest structure used as a bar in this country,
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, of colonial-era vernacular architecture, was built in New Orleans, Louisiana between 1722 and 1732. Some time after it was built, it was purportedly used by privateers Jean Lafitte and his brother Pierre Lafitte as a cover for their illegal smuggling activities.
Jean Lafitte was a fixer and rogue who played an instrumental role in aiding Major General Andrew Jackson and the Americans in their 1815 victory over the British during the Battle of New Orleans at Chalmette.
The Kaintucks
The Kaintucks, who were farmers from the Ohio river valley built boats from felled trees, floated the flat boats loaded with agricultural goods, coal, livestock and other products, down the Ohio river to the
Mississippi river and then downriver using the current of the river as power to get them to markets in Natchez and New Orleans.
Before steam boats were able to paddle upriver, these flat boats could only be used to travel downstream and the boatmen would dismantle the boat and sell the logs as lumber. Then, with pockets full of money, they would then walk or ride horses up the trace to Nashville and then use other established road to return back to Kentucky.
By the year 1810, more than 10,000 Kaintucks traveled the Old Trace to return after selling their goods at market. Walking an average of seventeen miles a day, would take the Kaintucks a month or more to travel the Old Trace back to their home. Those on horseback could make the trip in about three or four weeks.
From the time of the formation of the Mississippi Territory in 1798 to statehood in 1817, the number of boatmen traders using the trace to return north to the Ohio river increased so much that on April 23, 1800, the Sixth Congress voted to establish a new post road from Nashville to Natchez in the Mississippi Territory
From this point in time forward, the Natchez Trace was to become one of the national roads of the United States.
The Post Riders
Then, in the early 1800s, the Natchez Trace became a Postal Road to deliver mail between Washington D.C to Natchez, what was then called the southwest during that time. The Trace was the quickest way to travel between Nashville, Tennessee and Natchez, Mississippi.
Meriwether Lewis 1774 - 1809
Lewis was thirty-five years old when he died at Grinder House, a stand on the Old Natchez Trace. The ruins of that stand are near to the location where he was buried. Yes, at a young age, his life of romantic exploration and lasting achievement came to an abrupt, mysterious and tragic end on the night of October 11, 1809, there on the Old Natchez trace.
A monument has been placed over his grave and the location had become a national monument where there is a re-creation of the Grinder stand, and other displays near
Meriwether Lewis campground.
War of 1812
During the War of 1812 between the U.S. and Great Britain, the Old Natchez Trace was a vital link for helping the U.S. troops into position to fight the British.
Andrew Jackson lead his troops down the Old Natchez Trace to engage the British during the war of 1812. A song was later written about his exploits during that time.
In 1814, we took a little trip, along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and we fought the bloody British in the town of New Orleans. Well....
After the decisive defeat of the British at the battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson marched his troops home to Tennessee along the Old Natchez Trace, which became the last military use of this road.
Travel Decreases on the Trace
With the increasing of bandits, outlaws and thieves operating on the Old Natchez Trace, travelers began to look elsewhere for their travel plans.
By 1830, multiple reasons diverted travel off of the old trace. Steamboat became popular to travel north on the Mississippi, alternate roads were built and treaties with the native people all took their toll on the use of the Old Nathez Trace for travel between Natchez and Nashville.
By the time of the civil war, most all travel on the Old Natchez Trace had ceased. However, a small section of the Old Natchez Trace, from Port Gibson to Jason, Mississippi was to be used to help the federal troops siege on Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Just as the overgrown trail has all but been forgotten, an article written by a journalist in the very early 1900′s rekindled interest in the Old Natchez Trace.
In 1905, it was announced by a civic organization that the commemoration of the Old Natchez Trace would be an official task of their organization. Other civic groups saw an opportunity for the Old Natchez Trace to be remembered and saved. It seems that this nation just did not want to let go of one of their first highways.
A New National Roadway
In 1938, then president Franklin Roosevelt and congress authorized the creation of a national roadway to run the length of and along the same path of the Old Natchez Trace. It was to be called the Natchez Trace Parkway.
The parkway would follow the Old Natchez Trace very closely, but because of some of the Old Natchez Trace was on private land, the builders constructed the road in acquired land as close to the Old Natchez Trace as possible.
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