The Natchez Trace Parkway: Perfect for Slow Cruising

Don’t hurry when traveling on the Natchez Trace Parkway. This is a lazy road.

It holds stories about famous heroes, leaders and outlaws. It invites you to stop and visit many interest sites along its 450-mile length from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi.

The modern trace -- designated a National Scenic Byway and an All American Road -- was begun in the late 1930s. After nearly 70 years, this limited access, two-lane highway virtually was finished in 2002 to form a continuous ribbon that blends into a bucolic natural setting.

The beginnings of the trace.

The parkway really enhances the original wilderness trail. It sweeps fluid-like through lowland fields, farmlands and wooded areas, generally following what was originally a series of buffalo trails.

Natchez, Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians and early settlers later used these trails to travel from the Mississippi over low hills into the Tennessee River valley. Riders on horseback relied on the trace to deliver mail to populated areas as the frontier expanded west.

Boatmen helped create the trace.

By 1785, American settlers in the Ohio River Valley, looking to market their crops and other products, were floating flatboats filled with goods to Natchez and New Orleans.

After reaching their destinations, they’d sell their goods along with the flatboats themselves for the lumber. The return trip home meant either riding a horse or walking. That’s how legions of boatmen heading north out of Natchez tramped the formerly crude trail into the clearly marked trace.

By 1810, the improved trace had become the most heavily traveled road in the Old Southwest. Local folks built many inns -- called stands -- along this route. By 1820, more then 20 such shelters accommodated travelers.

However, even with these improvements, the trace was not a bed of roses. Travelers faced many hazards including thieves, swamps, floods, disease-carrying insects and sometimes, unfriendly Indians.

Steamboats ended its use.

The growing popularity of steamboat travel changed all this. Travelers liked the steamboats’ speed and relative safety more than the slow pace and discomfort of going overland. Soon, activity along the trace quieted to the peacefulness of a forest lane, which is its character today.

Check out the sights.

Along its length, the parkway preserves the area’s heritage. The Park Service has set up nature trails, markers and exhibits that explain the region’s history. You can visit archaeological and geological sites, early homes and structures, plantations, inns, pioneer and slave cemeteries, Native American settlements and Civil War battlefields.

Along many sections, the Natchez Trace Parkway parallels the Old Trace. You can walk along overgrown and abandoned portions of the Old Trace and get a feel for the trail’s original character and isolation.

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