The Natchez Trace — 500 Miles of Footpath History

Before it was a parkway, it was a path beaten into the earth by thousands of years of use. Buffalo herds, Choctaw and Chickasaw hunters, and then the Kaintuck flatboatmen who floated goods down the Mississippi to Natchez and New Orleans, sold their boats for lumber, and walked the 500 miles home to Nashville. The Trace was the most important overland route in the American interior from 1785 to 1820. Bandits like the Harpe brothers and John Murrell preyed on returning boatmen carrying cash. The steamboat killed the Trace by 1830 — why walk when you can ride upstream? The National Park Service turned it into a 444-mile scenic parkway in 1938. Natchez is mile zero.