The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1956-11-30
"A FAMOUS SCENIC
ROUTE BUILT FIRST
BY BUFFALO HERDS
Nafehez Trace Parkway Memoir
ializes Old Wilderness Path
for $50 Miles

Washington.-On Natchez Trace,
where early frontiersmen stumbled
in fear and darkness, American
motorists speed today with an ease
unimaginable $50 years ago.
The 450-mile Natchez Trace
Parkway, which memorializes the
wilderness path that once linked
Nashville, Tennessee, with Nat
chez, Mississippi, is almost half
finished. 1t follows as closely as
possible the route of the original
trail, much of it now almost OBJ
liberated.
Bison Built First
The original builders were Bison,
says the National Geographic So
ciety. Returning year after year
to favorite feeding grounds and
salt ticks, they beat many paths
with their hoofs. The Indians link
ed the paths and soon there was
trail, shaking like a slack thread
Settlers used it, too, on their way
west. But the principal users were
the "Kentucks," the flatboatmen
who floated cotton, sugar, and
flour down the Ohio and Mississ-
ippi Rivers to New Orleans.
Because they couldn't push their
boats upstream, the rivermen sold
them in New Orleans and walked
500 miles home-25 miles a day or
three weeks in all-over Natchez
Trace.
around treacherous swamps and
impenetrable clumps of forest.
In the early days people called
the passageway Chickasaw Path
for the Indians that trod it. 1t was
also known as Notchey Trace for
the "notched" trees that marked
the route, as well as Natchez
Trace-"trace" coming from the
French word for track or line of
footprints. A.
By 1900 Congress had establish
ed a post road over the route.
These Kentucks, with their I'M
shaved faces and long, matted
names, were sturdy fellows. They
could "wade the Mississippi" they
boosted, 'leap the Ohio" and
whip their weight in wildcats. I"
They used to bet on beating the
post rider to Nashville. walking"
Johnson, known as the greatest
pedestrian of his day, actually did
beat the mail three times.
Horses Stuck in Mire
Notwithstanding, many of them
never got home. They fell victim
to rains, floods, hurricanes, and
disease. Even those who could af-
ford horses didn't have it easy.
Horses swan across streams, while
the riders made their way on i'm
provised RATS and bridges. Many
a horseman, crossing a swamp,
had to leave his mount behind, its
feet stuck in the bottom clay, pin
ned to certain death.
Until the Federal Government
took a hand in improving the road
after 1900, there were no inns
along the way. And when the tav-
erns did come, so did bandits. A
man could sleep at one of these
Stands" for 1917 cents a night,
but he might be robbed of all. the
profits he had collected in New
Orleans.
Many hardy Kentucks fell to the
knives or guns of the "land pi-
Explorer Meriwether Lewis,
of Lewis and Clark fame, died of
bullet wounds at Grinders Stand
in Tennessee three years after re-
turning from the West.
Other famous men who rode or
walked the Trace included John
James Audubon, Henry Clay, JEFF
ferson Davis, Aaron Burr, and
Andrew Jackson. In the War of
1872, Jackson marched brigade
of Tennessee militia over the road.
On that hard trip the men so adj
mired Jackson's tough leadership
they gave him a name that stuck
through history: "Old Hickory" it
was.
The jefferson Memorial
Magnet for many visitors to
Washington, D. c., is the classic
Thomas Jefferson Memorial on the
Tidal Basin. The heroic statue of
the standing Jefferson is clothed
in a greatcoat--a likeness of the
coat that was given to him by
General Thaddeus Kosciusko, the
Polish patriot of the American