Natchez Trace

The Natchez Trace was a 440-mile-long path extending from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee, linking the Cumberland, the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers. It was used extensively by Native Americans and early Caucasian explorers as both a trade and transit route in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Today, the trail has been commemorated with the 444-mile-long Natchez Trace Parkway which follows the trail's approximate path. (See TNGenWeb's picture http://users.ev1.net/~gpmoran/natchez.jpg.) The trail itself has a long and rich history, filled with brave explorers, dastardly outlaws and daring settlers. Parts of the original trail are still accessible.

Development and Disappearance of the Trace

It was not until 1801, when the United States Armed Forces began blazing the trail for use as a postal route, that major work was performed on the Trace to prepare it as a thoroughfare for travelers. Treaties were signed with the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations, and work began, first solely by soldiers reassigned from West Tennessee, and then later by civilian contract. By 1809, the trail was fully navigable by wagon. Critical to the success of the Trace as a trade route were inns and trading posts, referred to at the time as "stands." For the most part, the stands developed southbound from the head of the trail in Nashville.

Related Topics:
1801 - United States Armed Forces - West Tennessee - 1809 - Inn - Trading post

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By 1816, the stands along the Trace had almost reached a critical mass, but the continued development of Memphis, Tennessee and Andrew Jackson's military road, a direct line to New Orleans, Louisiana from Nashville, began shifting trade both east and west. The Trace entered a steady decline, and as author William C. Davis writes in his book A Way Through the Wilderness, it was "a victim of its own success." It had highlighted the benefits of trade with the mouth of the Mississippi, and because of the improved ease of water-bound trade, particularly the dawn of steamboat culture, it became obsolete. In 1830, the Trace was officially abandoned as an official road, and began to disappear back into the wilderness from whence it came.

Related Topics:
1816 - Memphis, Tennessee - New Orleans, Louisiana - Steamboat - 1830

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