Natchez Trace
NATCHEZ TRACE
NATCHEZ TRACE, a road running more than five hundred miles from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi, on the Mississippi River, roughly follows an old Indian trail. After the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, the economic and military necessity spurred the government to build roads. In 1806, Congress authorized construction to begin on the Natchez Trace. For several decades most of its traffic was northward, since settlers would float their produce down the Mississippi to market on flatboats and return over the Trace by foot or on horseback. Construction of a 450-mile parkway following the trace began in 1934. In 1938 it was designated the Natchez Trace National Parkway.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Katherine J., and Lewis L. Gould. Inside the Natchez Trace Collection: New Sources for Southern History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1999.
Daniels, Jonathan. The Devil's Backbone: The Story of the Natchez Trace. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962.
Davis, William C. A Way through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier. New York: Harper Collins, 1995.
Gerald M.CapersJr./h. s.