Old Trace Exhibit shelter on the Natchez Trace Parkway

A covered shelter at this stop on the Natchez Trace Parkway houses four information panels that tell the history of the Natchez Trace. The Trace originated as an Indian trail. With the arrival of Europeans in the late 1700s to what would later become Mississippi and Tennessee, the trail was used by boatmen who carried supplies down the Mississippi River from Nashville to either Natchez or New Orleans. At the time Nashville was the westernmost bastion of inland civilization in the English colonies, and Natchez and New Orleans were major port cities. Steam power had not yet been invented, so while the boats could float down the river, they could not travel back up against the current. The boatmen unloaded their cargo at their destination, sold their boats for scrap wood, and had to walk back to Nashville, a 500 mile journey along the Natchez Trace. Later, the Trace was used by the military and the U. S. Post Office.

Located across the street from the exhibit shelter is an original section of the Natchez Trace that runs a few hundred yards. For those traveling north on the Natchez Trace Parkway from the southern starting point in Natchez, this is your first opportunity to walk on a section traveled by settlers over 200 years ago. Notice that you are walking in what appears to be a deep gully. The soil is very sandy in this part of the country, and the gully was created by thousands of men, horses, and wagons traveling the trail and wearing a large ditch into the earth. The sides indicate the height of the earth before people started walking on it. As you travel north on the Parkway, the soil becomes less sandy, and while gullies were still worn into the Natchez Trace, they are nowhere as deep as they are in southern Mississippi.