We're off to explore the Natchez Trace Parkway, which stretches from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee.  The Natchez Trace takes its name from the dim paths or 'traces' made by buffalo herds and other wild game trampling through the wilderness.  Indians followed, hunting the game and living off the land.  Later Spanish explorers travelled this way, and the Trace evolved into one of the most important roads in early America. 

From the late 1700's to 1820, the Natchez Trace was a vital artery connecting New Orleans with the Ohio Valley.  Farmers and traders, known collectively as "Kaintucks," would float crops and other products down the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers to the Mississippi River and the ports of Natchez and New Orleans. Great volumes of flour, pork, hemp, tobacco, iron and other goods were floated down the river on flatboats that were then broken up and sold for lumber at journey's end.  Their pockets bulging with gold and silver, these so-called "Kaintucks" took the only way home - the long walk up the Natchez Trace.  One historical marker noted that those who survived the "heat, mosquitoes, poor food, hard beds (if any), disease, swollen rivers, and soaking swamps" called it the Devil's Backbone.

 With the appearance of steamboats, which made upstream travel possible, the long and arduous Natchez Trace quickly fell into disuse.  This pathway to the past has now been resurrected by the National Park Service; the 444-mile-long scenic highway generally follows the route of the original Trace.  Along the way, there are plenty of opportunities for stops to explore ghost towns, Indian mounds, exhibits, hiking trails and nature walks. 

It's a delightful drive.  The speed limit is 55 mph; there are no traffic lights, no stop signs, and no commercial traffic.  The little Toyota hybrid liked it, too - we got 45 mpg driving on the Trace!  Nice.

The southern end of the trail begins on the bluffs of Natchez, overlooking the Mississippi River, and this is where we began our journey.  Natchez was founded by the French on land that once beli9ng to the Natchez Indians, a people essentially wiped out by 1735.  By the early 1800s, huge cotton plantations and the trade that flowed down the Mississippi River, Natchez was so prosperous that it boasted more millionaires than any other city in the young nation.  Their money filled the town with ornate churches, elaborate public buildings, and grand private mansions - all of which gave Natchez the exotic flavor of the larger city of New Orleans. 

Because Natchez was of no strategic importance during the Civil War, dozens of exceptional houses erected by the cotton aristocracy survived the war.  We took a self-guiding walking tour around the town - it's a bit like walking around in a living museum. 

Our tour began on the riverbank, at the Under-the-Hill Saloon, which sits on a narrow landing squeezed between the Mississippi and the town perched on the bluff above it.  In the early 1800s, the saloon was among the most wicked and dangerous places on the frontier - the first stop for rough and ready boat crews bound north up the Trace.  It's a bit quieter today, though a sign on the wall reads "Beware Pickpockets and Loose Women."

Also on the riverfront is the Isle of Capri Casino, located in a replica of a big old-time Mississippi River steamboat.  We took a walk around the inside - lots of places to drop a few coins...

Up on the bluff there is a nice walkway overlooking the Mississippi waterfront.  It's a great place for a stroll, and we'll be back for the sunset.

Across from the park is Bontura, the brick house that was built by a free black man who owned a stable and carriage company in the mid-1800s.

At the south end of the bluff is Rosalie, an antebellum house built about 1820 not far from the site of old Fort Rosalie, which was established by the French in 1716. 

Nearby is The Parsonage, built in 1852 on land donated to the Methodist Church by Peter Little, owner of Rosalie.

A couple of blocks inland brought us to Greenlea, built in 1795 and today housing a bed-and-breakfast.

Magnolia Hall was built in about 1850 and has been restored by the Natchez Garden Club.

Trinity Episcopal Church features rate art glass windows designed and installed by Louis Tiffany.  The rector led us inside for a better look at the windows - and the added bonus of hearing the organist practice a beautiful piece of music.

Across from the church is Glen Auburn, built in 1875.  This Victorian house is one of the finest examples of French Second Empire architecture in the South.  The dog in the front yard isn't so old, but he adds a nice touch.

Not far away, amid spacious grounds stands The Elms, where one early resident wrote the first book printed in the Natchez Territory. 

In 1837, Natchez was designated the seat of the Catholic Church of Mississippi.  St. Mary Basilica was built in 1842; it is the only church in Mississippi built as a cathedral.

Another interesting building is the red brick former county jail, built in the 1890s.  A rare Queen Anne style building, the old jail is one of only a few remaining in the country built to resemble a house but to serve as a jail.  It now serves as a county administration building - wonder if the employees still think it's a jail?

Another grand house is known as the House on Ellicott Hill.  It was one of the city's first restoration projects; it was the site of the raising of the first American flag over the Natchez Territory in 1797. 

All around town, Mardi Gras season is evident.  Many houses have door decorations - mostly using the traditional colors of Mardi Gras - green, purple, and gold. 

By the time we trekked all over the city, it was time for supper, so we headed over to Cock of the Walk on the river.  Hard to beat home-cooked greens and hot cornbread.

And then it was time for sunset, so we headed back out to the Bluff.  Not a bad way to wind up a nice day. 










On the way out of town the next day, we rode by Longwood and Melrose, two of Natchez's better known plantations on the outskirts of town.

  Longwood's architecture was inspired by the Orient and today it is considered one of the grandest octagonal houses in the United States.  It was designed to have 32 rooms, each with its own outside entrance and balcony, but only nine rooms on the ground floor were completed before the outbreak of the Civil War.  It has been maintained by the Garden Club as it was in 1861 and has been recognized as a national Historic Landmark.

Melrose is a mansion that is said to reflect perfection in its Greek Revival design. The 80-acre estate is now part of Natchez National Historical Park and is open to the public. The house is furnished for the period just before the Civil War.

And now it's time for the Natchez Trace Parkway -- Mile Marker 0.

Mile 10.3: Heading out of Natchez, one of our first stops was at Emerald Mound, the second largest ceremonial mound in the United States.  Built by natives of the Mississippian culture (ancestors of the Natchez Indians) and used between 1250 and 1750 A.D., this flat-topped, 35-foot pile originally supported temples and other structures on its 8-acre surface.

Mile 12.4: Nearby we learn about loess bluffs, deep deposits of top soil from the Ice Age.  Continuous dust storms swept in from the Plains and covered the area with 30 to 90 feet of windblown soil.  The Trace then cut 20-foot ravines into the soft soil, so deep that travelers on horseback could pass by unnoticed from the surrounding woods.

More than 50 inns, called stands, were about a day's journey apart and saw heavy use during the Trace's busiest times.   For 25 cents, lodgers received a simple supper and then bedded down with assorted other odoriferous wayfarers and their belongings - mostly a bedroll and a canteen.  If they weren't robbed or killed overnight, the next morning they'd trudge patiently onward, hoping to make the next stand by nightfall.  (Note:  the bedroll, hanging on a peg in this picture, was called a 'budget' because that's where the travelers kept their money.)

Mile 15.5:  Mount Locust is the only remaining example of these accommodations - it was 23 miles north of Natchez.  Mount Locust was actually the Chamberlain family home and plantation, with the last of the family leaving the home in 1945 - one of the park's rangers, Eric Chamberlain, was born in this house, which was built on a 600-acre land grant.  The family was forced to become innkeepers because so many people knocked on the front door seeking food and shelter.  The family built a dormitory behind the house and sometimes took in as many as 40 to 50 guests a night.  

Mile 30:  A short side trip toward the Mississippi River brought us to the eerie Windsor ruins, 23 majestic, crumbling Corinthian columns - all that’s left of a four-story mansion built in 1861 and "visible for miles in every direction," as Mark Twain noted in Life on the Mississippi. During the Civil War, General Grant thought the mansion was too beautiful to burn; he left the structure unharmed, but in 1890, it burned to the ground due to a smoker's carelessness.  The sketch shows how the house once looked. 

Mile 41.5:  Further north, we stop to walk on one of the many preserved portions of the original Trace.  It turns out to be a U-shaped sunken cavity in the soft ground, at least 20 feet deep.  Have to wonder how many feet, paws and hooves over how many years have trod this shadowy stretch to cause such erosion.  Perhaps General Andrew Jackson came by here after the Battle of New Orleans.  Or maybe Aaron Burr paused here as he walked up the trail to Nashville in 1805.  The forest has many stories to tell.

Mile 54.8:  Once a bustling town on the Natchez Trace, today Rocky Springs is only a reminder of the history of the area.  Established in 1790, the town grew substantially during the 1800s.  The reduction of traffic on the Trace, the Civil War, yellow fever and the boll weevil brought an end to this once-thriving community.  A short trail leads to the old town site, where a church, a cemetery and the rusty safe from the old post office are all that remain today. 

Mile 102:  Jackson, Mississippi's capitol city, was the stopping place for our first day on the Trace.  We happened to be there on Mardi Gras Day and that, of course, was cause for a party.  The hotel was all decorated with banners, balloons and beads, with food and drink provided for all.  Our friend Ellen Jones came over to visit on her way home from teaching a class, and we all enjoyed a beer and a bowl of red beans and rice.

Mile 102.4:  We started our second day at the Mississippi Crafts Center, on the outskirts of Jackson.  The Center displays an extensive array of traditional and contemporary works created by Southern artisans.  This is really an impressive place, though we're still a little partial to the SC Artisans' Center in Walterboro.

Mile 121:  At this point, there is a nice trail through a typical Southern cypress swamp.  Early travelers must have loved slogging knee-deep through a mosquito-infested bog...

Mile 160:  Just off the Trace is the small town of Kosciuszko, named for the Polish aristocrat who served under George Washington in the Revolutionary War.  The town is justifiably proud of its excellent public schools, free after-school tutoring and a foundation that provide college tuition-assistance for its high school graduates.  Kosciuszko's favorite daughter is Oprah Winfrey, so we stopped by to see the church she attended as a child (her old home has been torn down and the church is now a community center).

Mile 180.7:  French Camp is a town right on the Trace, where a French Canadian established an inn in 1812.  Part of the old village has been restored, including a plantation house, a log cabin museum, and blacksmith shop.  There's also a little cafe, a gift shop, and a bed-and-breakfast. 

Mile 249.6:  Nothing to see here today except forest, but this spot - Tockshish - is an important historical spot.  In 1800, the Trace was declared a national Post Road with mail service between Natchez and Nashville.  Postmen on horseback would leave their respective cities and meet halfway at the post office here to exchange mailbags.  They would then mount fresh horses and return to their starting points.  The trip required a total of 12 days.

Mile 266:  Off the trace again for a different kind of sight-seeing; we stopped to have a look around Tupelo, Mississippi, birthplace of "The King," Elvis Presley.  His birthplace has been turned into a shrine, a large complex of buildings including his boyhood home, his childhood church, a museum, a memorial chapel, a statue of Elvis at age 13, and all manner of signs, markers and monuments documenting every aspect of the years that Elvis lived in Tupelo.

Mile 269.4:  After a night's rest, we set off on the final day of our journey on the Trace.  The day had a melancholy feel, thanks to the cloudy skies and our stop at the graves of 13 unknown Confederate soldiers, set back in the woods along the old Trace just north of Tupelo.  This final resting place is a peaceful spot facing the historic Old Trace, the last road these men travelled.

Mile 286.7:  Here we stopped to see the Pharr Mounds, the largest and most important archeological site in Northern Mississippi.  Eight large, domed burial grounds, built between 1-200 A.D., are scatted over a 90-acre area. 

Mile 293.2:  Near the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, we spotted a beaver lodge - but no beavers posing today.  The Waterway was built by the Army Corps of Engineers, making 459 miles navigable between the Tennessee River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Mile 308.8:  Bear Creek Mound is the oldest prehistoric site on the Natchez Trace.  Beginning about 7000 B.C., American Indians used the mound for religious and ceremonial purposes, and there are still signs of a structure built on top of it in about 1400 A.D.

Mile 327.3:  Crossing the northwest corner of Alabama, we stopped at Colbert's Ferry.  Travelers often had to ford streams and rivers in their journey northward and the mighty Tennessee River was the worst of all natural obstacles.  That is, until 1802, when Chickasaw Indian Chief George Colbert began operating a ferry here.  Fees were set at 50 cents for travelers on foot, $1 for those on horseback, half price if you were delivering mail.  Legend has it that Colbert charged General Andrew Jackson some $75,000 to transport his army across.  Today, an elegant bridge spans the wide river.

Mile 350.5:  This was another spot where we took a walk along the old Trace, including three sections of the old road that were re-located to avoid mud holes. 

Mile 376:  Just across the Alabama-Tennessee state line, we took a drive along Old Trace Drive, a narrow 2.5 mile one-way road that follows a section of the old Trace along a ridge.  The original footpath was widened to accommodate horse-drawn wagons.

Mile 385.9:  Near Hobenwald, Tennessee, is the Meriwether Lewis Site, which received a touch of fame when the famous explorer died here three years after returning from the Great Northwest.  He had been en route to Washington, D.C., from St. Louis, Missouri, carrying his expedition journals, and stopped for the night at Robert Grinder's inn along the Trace.  Sometime during the night, Lewis screamed out in agony, mortally wounded - shot in the heat and chest.  Some historians question whether his wounds were self-inflicted or whether Mrs. Grinder or her husband might have shot and robbed him.  President Thomas Jefferson, knowing that Lewis suffered from chronic depression, was in debt and was struggling with the responsibilities of his newly-appointed role as Governor of the Louisiana Territory, believed that Lewis died by his own hand.  His grave is adjacent to a cemetery of early settlers; the monument marking his grave is designed like a broken shaft, to dramatize the fact that a significant life had been cut short at age 35.

Mile 390:  All along the way, we were on the lookout for wildlife.  For a while, we thought all we'd see were buzzards and crows, but we also spotted red-tailed hawks, egrets and herons, turtles, white-tail deer, and loads of wild turkeys.  This gathering of about 2 dozen birds was by far the most impressive.

Mile 404.7:  Further north is Jackson Falls, where we descended a steep hill to the base of the falls to see the water tumbling over black rocks into a clear creek below.  Nearby is Duck River Overlook, which provides a nice view of the river and the farmland beyond.

Mile 407.7:  Next stop was the Gordon House and Ferry Site.  This is one of the two remaining original Old Trace structures on the parkway.  From 1801 until traffic on the Trace decline, the Gordon family lived here and ran a ferry across the Duck River.  The house was built around 1818; its small stature belies the fact that it once was the main house of a 1500-acre plantation. 

Mile 438.0:  Here we stopped to admire the Double Arch Bridge, which spans a pastoral valley, Birdsong Hollow.  This was America's first bridge constructed with sections of concrete; it re4ceived the Presidential Award for Design Excellence in 1995 for its innovative design that rises 155 feet above the valley below.

Mile 444:  The end of the parkway, on the outskirts of Nashville.  Nearby is the Loveless Cafe, a local favorite and a fine place to stop for breakfast at any time of the day.  Country ham, scrambled eggs, red-eye gravy, hot biscuits, and homemade preserves - worth the trip!



In the end, one can't help but be impressed by the boatmen and others who walked this path.  The track they followed north 200 years ago meandered through swamps infested with alligators, snakes and mosquitoes, across swift-flowing and chest-high rivers and under the gaze of unpredictable Native Americans and land pirates, some of them posing as preachers to gain their victims trust.   For most modern-day travelers, just knowing that a 450-mile walk lay ahead of them would be enough to halt them in their tracks.  Hard to believe that between 1780 and 1810, nearly 10,000 people made their way over this trail.  Can't say we'd recommend following exactly in their footsteps, but the parkway is a beautiful drive, with just the right mixture of nature, history, and scenic beauty.  By the time we got into Tennessee, the weather got seriously cold - snow in the Smoky Mountains!

Footnote:  From March 1-11, from West Columbia to Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina and home again, the intrepid travelers covered 2,259 miles.  Quite a trip.