The Natchez Trace

The Natchez Trace was a busy place from about 1780-1805 or so. The Mississippi was a great way to get a lot of goods downriver; peoneers from Ohio. Illionis etc would get together all their crops and hides, build a raft out of logs, float the whole thing down to New Orleans, sell the goods, and break up the raft and sell the logs (the young Abraham Lincoln did this, a few years later). But then what? The technology of steamboats hadn't yet progressed to steaming upstream against the current of the Mighty Mississip'. So, they had to walk.

The Trace starts near Nashville - beautiful city; its defining image is Hank Williams, the Grand Ole Opry, and country music in general. Then, it goes off to the southwest, cutting a corner of Alabama, thru Mississippi to Natchez on the Mississippi River.

In its time, the Trace was full of hostile Indians, bushwhackers, British French and Spanish officials and soldiers - who were still jockeyeing for control of the territory, this being before the Louisiana Purchase - and assorted characters trekking back north. About 1812, after steamboats were developed that could run upriver, the trace was abandoned; Now, it's a national park for its whole length. It's beautiful, and peaceful - not a lot of people or traffic. The two picture on the right are of the Trace as it actually was, only a bit overgrown.

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At Vicksburg, we saw the USS Corinth, a salvaged Civil War Ironclad; then a side trip to Pine Bluffs, Ark to see Barb's college friend Celeste Jackson-White, and discover a little musical-instrument museum with some really strange instruments.

An old mansion near Natchez, added to some since the days of the Trace.