The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-10

Most intelligent Americans know of the old trail, but very few know just where It
 ran. Tt wound through strange. scared hills. down canyons lone. where wild
 things screamed, with winds for com pany; it's mile stones were the bones of pioneers" In these days the Atchison. Topeka and Santa Fe railroad practically follows the pass trail In 1907 each school child in the Sunfiower State was asked to contribute a penny to a fund to buy markers for the famous old trail, and s69, 166 responded.
 "Old Post Road"
 Another road famous in history is the 'sOld Post Road in New York. Tt Is not so long since stages ran between New York and Albany. In New York the
 terminus of the stage line was at Court
 land street, near Broadway. The broad
 fields and we'll kept .orchards that lines
 the highway then have been cut ID by streets and built upon. The cozy farm
 houses and suburban villas are gone, or, like the Jumel and Hamilton mansions, stand walled in by solid blocks of brick and stone. The turnpike keeps along the river, fashionable drive for the resi- dents of the handsome villas, while the older road, following an early Indian trial, runs through valleys parallel with the Hudson, but from two to six miles Go the eastw ard. Scattered along the post road at irregular intervals are many of the old milestones. They are moss grown
 and discolored with age, and the lettering Is almost effaced; yet they hold them selves erect like war scared veterans and do their duty as faithfully as in the days when weary passengers looked for them from the coach windows. All this region iDtareEt Even fraPas of the earthworll of the fortified places | of Revolutionary days are to be seen. Nothing better than a 1elsurely trip in the autumn over this charming road could be imagined.
 The Nolichucky Trace
 | The "Nollchucky' trace led through the Waxhaw settlement on the Catawba river. the birthplace of Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, on "across the Blue Wall. Through Cumberland Gap the road is called tho Harrowgate road. It leads on | to Harrodstown, in Kentucky. Boone
 went through this gap in 176s. He was Accompanied by Samuel Galloway a rela- tive, and ancestor of many of the Calla- ways of Tennessee, Kentucky and Mis- souri. The latter was at the side of
 Boone when approaching a spur of the Cumberland mountains, upon whose slopes they saw multitudes of bison grazing, the
 great pioneer paused and surveying the scene a moment exclaimed with kindling eyes:
 q am richer than he who owns the cat tie on a thousand hills, for I own the wild
 beasts of a thousand valleys"
 Kentucky was peopled through the "Wilderness Road" that went over Cum berland Gap by followers of Boone. and as you ride along that road today you
 can see how the teams of successive i'm
 migrants have worn down the old "oad several feet below its original level. But this immigration passed over the gap, leaving 1t as lonely as any other mountain pass In 1888 the American association built down the pountain side the town
 of Middlesborough. spending some twenty six millions of English dollars, building
 the K o. G. X l.. R. R., and tunnelling Cumberland Gap, over which passed Boone, the great typical chara cter Of the
 age and region, 119 years before. His
 name is interwoven with the history of Kentucky, "the Dark and Bloody Ground" and with the settlement of the west Col Richard Henderson of North Carolina formed in 1775 an association known as Col. Richard Henderson's com pany, one of the most extraordinary that was ever engaged in opening up our vest Iern territory. It was over this trail that Gen. George Rogers Clark, the Hannibal lof the West" and his brave followers passed few years later fighting their way at every step. until he "stood in he center of the square under the flag to whose renown he had added three stars' | There Is the miry square within the Vim cennes Fort thin and bronzed and travel
 stained, were the men who had dared the
 wilderness in its Nlgliest mood. And yet I,rb h 6o,- had come here compelled by spirit stronger than his own, by a master mind that laughed at the body and its ailments. The descendants of those who followed
 Boone into the wild scenes he lived so long among, and Clark, who was like Hannibal in conquering the foe, and like Ivanhoe in his love for chivalrous deeds have built a mighty empire between the
 Blue Wall'' and the Rocky mountains.
 The Natchez Trace
 None the less famous is the Natchsz Trace, which dates from 1891, when treaties were made with the Chickasaws and Choctaws for the opening of wagon road through their territories from Nash |ville, Tenn, to Natchez, on the Mississippi to be located as the President of the United States might indicate, and to be for the perptual use of the people of the OHlleu StdleS dnu or those nations. N O other road was ever provided for in any treaty, for which reason this road-the Natchez Trace named in later documents the Columbian Highway'D must be deemed as that which ran through In dian territory by virtue of treaty stipuia- tions. The course of the trace in Mis- sissippi has been worked out in that state. The Natchez Trace, though still used in most of it's parts, has lost it's lglories as a great commercial and mili- tary highway It is a road having a his-
 tory. and although its traditions come down, to the present generation dimmed
 by the mists of hundred years yet they are of sufficient force to keep alive q mild form of awe. Whenever you are di- rected to any place the trace must be a part of it, if you are to touch it or come near it. It serves the people there in lhe manner that a meridianal line serves the 'astronomer geographer Through put