Karen’s Snapshots!

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I wish I had a pair of blue suede shoes to wear today since Tupelo, Mississippi is the birthplace of Elvis Presley. I started my day with a tour of Elvis Presley’s Birthplace; the book I bought, Guide to the Natchez Trace Parkway by F. Lynne Bachleda, identifies his birthplace as being at mile marker 260, but it really is in the town of Tupelo and off the Trace Parkway. The birthplace includes a museum, the original house he was born in, a memorial chapel, the “walk of life” and a “fountain of life”, both of which tell stories about his childhood. After touring his birthplace, I headed downtown to get a closer look at the building with the beautiful copper dome that kept attracting my attention–it was the Lee County Courthouse and is quite beautiful. I also strolled the downtown area and found the Tupelo Hardware Store where Elvis’ first guitar was bought in 1946. Tupelo is a charming little town and they definitely are proud to be the birthplace of Elvis. On the way back to the Trace Parkway, I stopped at the Tupelo National Battlefield (mile marker 259.7) and checked it out. Back on the Trace I stopped at:

• Mile 261.8 - Chickasaw Village Site (Trace Top 20) - Exhibit signs explaining typical Chickasaw Indian life and what the buildings would have looked like, as laid out along the pathways.
• Mile 266 - Tupelo Visitor Center (Trace Top 20) - The National Parks visitor center.
• Mile 269.4 - Confederate Gravesites (Trace Top 20) - Somber and peaceful, the graves of 13 unknown soldiers.
• Mile 275.2 - Dogwood Valley - A grove of dogwood trees, but they weren’t in bloom at this time.
• Mile 278.4 - Twentymile Bottom - On of the seemingly few elevated spots in Mississippi and it offered a view of the landscape below. FYI, Mississippi’s highest elevation is 806 feet above sea level on Woodall Mountain.
• Mile 283.3 - Donivan Slough - A pretty water spot.
• Mile 286.7 - Pharr Mounds (Trace Top 20) - An extremely large field with eight Indian burial mounds approximately 2000 years old.
• Mile 293.2 - Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and Jamie L Whitten Bridge - A bridge over a man-made canal that connects the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers and a pretty wetland area next to it.
• Mile 308.4 - Cave Spring - A limestone cavern and what an excellent place to be when the afternoon rain started coming down, the trees are thick enough to keep the raindrops off me.
• Mile 308.8 - Bear Creek Mound - The oldest prehistoric site on the Trace, from approximately 7000-9000 BCE.
• Mile 308.9 - Crossing the Alabama State Line in the Rain
• Mile 327.3 - Colbert Ferry (Trace Top 20) - George Cobert operated a stand (inn) here and the only ferry across the Tennessee River, for which is charged admittedly high prices for.
• Mile 330.2 - Rock Spring (Trace Top 20) - A short trail around Colbert Creek with a geocache at the end. I didn’t see any hummingbirds, but there were beautiful butterflies all around.
• Mile 341.8 - Crossing the State Line into Tennessee
• Mile 350.5 - Sunken Trace - Sections of the old Trace, walked by the pioneers, can still be accessed and walked along.
• Mile 352.9 - McGlamery’s Stand - A stand owned by John McGlamery was operated here until the Civil War.
• Mile 363 - Sweetwater Branch - A nice picnic area by the creek.
• Mile 367.3 - Dogwood Mud Hole - A marker explaining how muddy the area became after rains.
• Mile 375.8 - Old Trace Drive (Trace Top 20) - A 2.5 mile one-way stretch of road that follows the old Trace path that you can drive north on.
• Mile 382.8 - Metal Ford - A pretty picnic site and creek where an old millrace was and were travelers crossed the Buffalo River.
• Mile 385.9 - Meriwether Lewis Site (Trace Top 20) - Grinder’s Stand, an old inn, is where explorer Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark Expedition fame, died in 1809. There was controversy over whether he committed suicide or was murdered. He was buried here and a monument was erected to him over his grave site.

I head off the Trace to Hohenwald, the nearest town, to spend the night.

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After spending the night in Clinton, Mississippi, a suburb of Jackson, I got back on the Natchez Trace Parkway and resumed at mile marker 93.

• Mile 93 - Cowles Mead Cemetery - A small family plot of the Mead family, whose home was burned down during the Civil War. As acting governor of Mississippi, Cowles Mead ordered the arrest of former Vice President Aaron Burr on treason charges that he was acquitted of.
• Mile 95 - Osburn Stand - The site of an inn operated by Noble Osburn in the early 1800s.
• Mile 100 - Choctaw Agency - The site where Silas Dinsmore’s performed the difficult duties of being the Choctaw Indian agent.
• Mile 102.4 - Mississippi Crafts Center - Last year the Crafts Center moved off the Trace and into a new building in town. I found it and spend some time marveling at all the wonderful craftsmanship of the artisans. The old building where the Crafts Center was still stands on the Trace, but it is closed.
• Mile 104.5 - Old Trace - Sections of the old Trace, walked by the pioneers, can still be accessed and walked along.
• Mile 105.6 - Ross Barnett Reservoir Overlook - The reservoir is named for Ross Barnett, the 52nd Governor of Mississippi.
• Mile 106.9 - Boyd Site - Six small Indian burial mounds, circa 800-1100.
• Mile 107.9 - West Florida Boundary - The new boundary as determined by the Treaty of Paris at the end of the French and Indian War in 1764.
• Mile 122 - Cypress Swamp (Trace Top 20 Site) - Absolutely gorgeous! A wooden bridge leads you over the swamp waters into an emerald green environment of water and trees. No one else was around, so I enjoyed a quiet walk around the swamp. I kept waiting for some animal to pop it’s head from the water and surprise me, but none did. As pretty as it is, I just can’t even begin to imagine having to walk through that water… ewww.
• Mile 135.5 - Robinson Road - A marker to commemorate the “Old Robinson Road”, named for the man who built it.
• Mile 140 - Red Dog Road - A marker to commemorate the road named to honor the Choctaw leader “Minko” Ofahoma (Red Dog).
• Mile 164.3 - Hurricane Creek - A trail (that I didn’t take) will lead you down to the creek banks.
• Mile 176.3 - Bethel Mission - A marker for the old Bethal “House of God” Mission, one of 13, that was founded to bring Christianity to the Choctaw Indians.
• Mile 180.7 - French Camp - The afternoon thundershower pours down on me as I pull over to look at the memorial marker for French Camp, a still active boarding school for children from broken homes. It stared as a stand (inn) in 1912, and became a school in 1822.
• Mile 193.1 - Jeff Busby Park - Jeff Busby was instrumental in passing legislation to make the Natchez Trace part of the National Park System. This used to be the only place where you could get gas, but they closed it this year.
• Mile 198.6 - Old Trace - Another section of the old Trace that can be accessed and walked along.
• Mile 203.5 - Pigeon Roost - Millions of passenger pigeons used to roost here before they became virtually extinct.
• Mile 213.3 - Line Creek - The boundary between the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian Nations.
• Mile 221.4 - Old Trace - More old Trace that can be accessed and walked along.
• Mile 232.4 - Bynum Mounds - Six burial mounds about 2000 years old. In the late 1940s, the Park Service excavated the mounds and found that the remains of people buried with valued possessions.
• Mile 233.2 - Witch Dance - Legend has it that the witches dance here and the grass doesn’t grow where their feet touch the ground.
• Mile 243.3 - Hernando de Soto - The Spanish explorer spent the winter of 1540-41 near here and story has it (depicted on a Pontotoc post office mural) that it was in this camp that the first Christian marriage in America was held here between a Spaniard and a Seminole princess that was being held captive.
• Mile 245.6 - Monroe Mission - The first religious building in northern Mississippi, established in 1827.
• Mile 251.1 - Chickasaw Council House - This was the capital of the Chickasaw Indian Nation in 1820.  Chiefs met here to make laws and policies.
• Mile 251.9 - Black Belt Overlook - “Black Belt” refers, not to karate, but to the excellent fertile black soil that is in the area and extends east all the way through most of Alabama; it’s this soil that allowed the area to become a cotton-rich region.

And off the Trace I go, into Tupelo to find dinner and a motel room.

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I start the morning in Natchez with a visit to an antebellum mansion because I can’t leave town without seeing some of the wonderful stuff here. I drive over to Natchez National Historic Park, Melrose and take a walk around the grounds. They offer tours of the main house, but the next one isn’t for another hour, so I pass on it. The Melrose Plantation was built in the late 1840’s and was owned by four different families until 1990 when the National Park Service bought it to continue its preservation as part of the Natchez Historical Historic Park. The main building is a Greek revival mansion and you can just imagine mint juleps being sipped on the porch. There are outbuildings that were the kitchen and laundry and slave sleeping quarters on the second floor. There is also another slave quarters building that holds an exhibit on slavery. Other buildings are a cottage, a stable and a carriage house. The formal gardens look like they have seen better days, but it was the shadiest spot on the plantation to sit.

In the visitor center I bought a book, Guide to the Natchez Trace Parkway by F. Lynne Bachleda, which turned out to be the best decision. The book details all the stops along the parkway and identifies what are considered to be the top 20 sites to see. And the first one it identified was the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians here in Natchez, so I headed over to see it before starting up the parkway. The Grand Village contains some mounds that were used by the Natchez Indians and some sample structures. I also took a walk down the nature trail to find a geocache and boy is it hot Mississippi, even under the trees!

Back to the air conditioning of the rental 4-Runner SUV, and after a little lunch, I head off up the Natchez Trace Parkway. The parkway is a 440 mile route from Natchez, Mississippi to just south of Nashville, Tennessee. The entire route is part of the National Park System and has history markers along the entire route. Every mile, there is a marker showing you where on the trail you are; they are numbered from south (0) to north (440), which is the directions I’m traveling. Below are the stops I made along the way:

• Mile 0 - Natchez Trace Parkway Entrance - the entrance sign, I’m officially on the route!
• Mile 4.8 - Elizabeth Female Academy - The first woman’s college in Mississippi opening in 1818.
• Mile 8.7 - Old Trace Exhibit Shelter - Sections of the old Trace, walked by the pioneers, can still be accessed and walked along.
• Mile 10.3 - Emerald Mound (Trace Top 20 Site) - An ancient indian ceremonial mound, used by the Natchez ancestors from 1250 to 1600, covering nearly 8 acres.
• Mile 15.5 - Mount Locust (Trace Top 20 Site) - Dating from 1780, it is the only remaining inn from about 50 that were along the Trace and one of the oldest buildings in Mississippi. There was an Park Interpretive Staff member that and we chatted. The house has been restored to the state is was in during the 1820s when it was a frontier house.
• Mile 41.5 - Sunken Trace (Trace Top 20 Site) — Another section of the old trace where you can walk in the footsteps of the pioneers. Also hanging around here, were two of the prettiest and friendliest pure white kittens, that I presume had been abandoned. I gave them a bit of food and felt bad that I couldn’t help them more.
• Mile 45.7 - Grindstone Ford - Marked where you left the Natchez District and entered the Choctaw Nation territory.
• Mile 45.7 - Mangum Mound - A ceremonial mound from the pre-Natchez Indian culture.
• Mile 61.0 - Lower Choctaw Boundary - The old southern boundary of the Choctaw lands, before a treaty moved it north 60 miles, opening the territory to white settlers and marking the beginning of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians being forced out of Mississippi.
• Mile 73.5 - Deans Stand - The spot where a historic stand (inn) stood. There was an old cemetery not to far from the history marker.
• Mile 78.3 - Battle of Raymond - Battle site during the Civil War’s Campaign of Vicksburg. The Confederates were driven back and about 1,000 men from both sides lost their life near here.

And time to head off the Trace Parkway a few miles and find a motel in Clinton.

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