Natchez Trace Parkway - Mile Marker 442 to 407.8

Taken from the brochure I'm using to navigate the NTP:

The Natchez Trace Parkway leads you 444 miles through 3 states and 10,000 years of history. Established as a unit of the National Park System in 1938 and officially completed in 2005, the Parkway commemorates the most significant highway in the old Southwest.

The natural travel corridor that became the Natchex Trace dates back many centuries. It bisected the traditional homelands of the Natchez, Chickasaw and Choctaw nations. As the United States expanded westward in the late 1700s and early 1800s, growing numbers of travelers tramped the rough trail into a clearly marked path. Where the ground was relatively soft, walkers, riders and wagons wore down the 'sunken' sections you see today. In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson designated the Trace a national post road for mail delivery between Nashville and Natchez.

Gen. Andrew Jackson, Meriwether Lewis (who died on the Trace in 1809), John James Audubon, Jefferson Davis and Ullysses S. Grant are some of the famous Americans to have traveled the Natchez Trace. Most travelers, though, were anonymous working folks. In the early 1800s through the mid-1820s, 'Kaintucks' from the Ohio River Valley floated cash crops, livestock and other materials down the Mississippi River on wooden flatboats. At Natchez or New Orleans, they sold their goods, sold their boats for lumber, and walked or road horseback toward home via the Old Trace. As the road improved, stands (inns) provided lodging, food and drink to the Trace travelers.

Exiting I40 at MM192  I headed east to pick up the Natchez Trace Parkway. It wasn't until I was several miles down the Parkway that I realized that the on ramp had me at MM 442 whereas the Northern Terminus is at MM444. Good thing I'm not a purist, no, I didn't go back to do the first 2 miles!!

A quick picture taking moment of Lady Arabella at MY start of the NTP and we were off. First stop at MM 438.6 at Birdsong Hollow to take a look at the Double Arch Bridge. It's 1,638 feet long and very impressive.

At the War of 1812 Memorial I met a couple who were doing a section of the Trace on horseback. There's several spots along the parkway that provide facilities for riders and trailers. They were fun to talk to and, of course, caught my accent right away.

The husband wanted to know when they quit using the Trace and I pointed out that it was still in use today...he'd been riding on it and it is used as a hiking trail although there are large sections that can no longer be hiked so the Parkway is pressed in to service.

At MM400.2 there's an interesting pull off. It's the approximate location of one of the stands (inns) that the Chickasaw allowed to be built on their nation. The condition for building them was that they must be operated by the Chickasaw. As you can see from the picture, even way back then they had the right idea - Sheboss!

At this point I headed to town for gas and then by the time I got back to the NTP I realized it was late in the day and headed directly to Meriwether Lewis Park for camping for the night. Little did I know that 8 miles down the Parkway I was going to run into a closed section and a detour that would take me almost a half hour to get around 4 miles of the closure.

Ha, I'd been looking at roads that I could see that ran along and under the parkway all day, wondering where they went. They go everywhere - the detour was proof of that.