Natchez Trace

Largely following a geologic ridge line, prehistoric animals followed the dry ground of the Trace to distant grazing lands, the salt licks of today's Middle Tennessee, and to the Mississippi River.

Native Americans used many early footpaths created by the foraging of bison, deer, and other large game that could break paths through the dense undergrowth.

The first recorded European explorer to travel the Trace in its entirety was an unnamed Frenchman in 1742, who wrote of the trail and its "miserable conditions".

Early European explorers depended on the assistance of Native American guides to go through this territory — specifically, the Choctaw and Chickasaw who occupied the region.

[5]: 42 Even before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson wanted to connect the distant Mississippi frontier to other settled areas of the United States.

The U.S. signed treaties with the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes to maintain peace as European Americans entered the area in greater numbers.

[2] Aaron Burr wrote to his daughter, that the "'road...you will see laid down...on the map...as having been cut by the order of the minister of war[,]...is imaginary; there is no such road.'

The region between Washington, Mississippi, and the Choctaw domain was, Burr reported, 'a vile country, destitute of springs or of running water—think of drinking the nasty puddle water, covered with green scum, and full of animaculae—bah!

… [H]ow glad I was to get [into the high country,] all fine, transparent, lively streams, and itself [the Tennessee] a clear, beautiful, magnificent river.

[9] By 1817, the continued development of Memphis (with its access to the Mississippi River) and Jackson's Military Road (heading south from Nashville) formed more direct and faster routes to New Orleans.

[2] As author William C. Davis wrote in his book A Way Through the Wilderness (1995), the Trace was "a victim of its own success" by encouraging development in the frontier area.

[2] Before the invention of steam power, the Mississippi River's south-flowing current was so strong that northbound return journeys generally had to be made over land.

[2] As part of the "Great Awakening" movement that swept the country in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the "spiritual development" along the Trace started from the Natchez end and moved northward.

Under-the-Hill, where barges and keelboats put in with goods from northern ports, was a hotbed of gamblers, prostitutes, and drunken crew from the boats.

The food was basic: corn in the form of hominy was a staple, and bacon, biscuits, coffee with sugar, and whiskey were served.