MS, AL, TN. Many days between January 7 – February 13, 2025.
The Parkway was built parallel to the Natchez Trace Trail, and the road celebrates this trail by providing a ton of information all along its 444 miles. There are 45-50 smaller trails in addition to the National Scenic Trail. The trail stretches from just southwest of Nashville, TN to just northeast of Natchez, MS.
In these photos, I try to give an example of the variety of information on display along the Parkway. Historical, botanical, geographical, geological, it’s all there. I could post 100 photos and I wouldn’t capture everything along the Parkway.
History of the Trace:
Over 10,000 years ago, Native Americans expanded on animal herd paths to create a trail used for travel and trade. Emerald Mound, the second-largest USA ceremonial/burial mound, is located along the Trace.
By the late 18th Century, “Kaintucks,” white colonists, used the Trace to walk north after having floated their boats down the Mississippi River to sell their wares in New Orleans and Natchez. They’d dismantle their boats and sell the lumber before starting their journey north. Rustic lodging then popped up along the Trace roughly every 20-miles to cater to the travelers.
35-year-old Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis & Clark) died of mysterious circumstances and was buried along the Trace.
Treaties granting Chickasaw and Choctaw land to colonists were signed along the Trace.
The Trail of Tears crosses the Trace.
The northern slave states used the Trace to march enslaved Black people to the Natchez slave trading market. The buying and selling of enslaved people between states boomed after it became illegal to import new enslaved people from Africa.
The Trace was the old western frontier and used as a postal route in the early 1800s. Andrew Jackson moved troops along it during the War of 1812. Both Union and Confederate troops used it, and battles were fought on and near it, during the Civil War.
The invention of the steamboat in the late 1800s was the beginning of the end of the Trace as a major travel route, since it became much easier to ride a boat back up the Mississippi than to walk the Trace.
