The Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall is a dry-stacked wall about a mile long that Tom Hendrix built by hand on his own land beside Lauderdale County Road 8, a short way east of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Hendrix, who retired in 1983 when a Ford aluminum plant closed, raised it from some eight million pounds of sandstone and limestone, laid without mortar, four to six feet high and thirty feet across at its widest. He kept at it for decades, still working eight and nine hour days in his eighties, and visitors from more than a hundred countries brought stones of their own to add. By his own tally the work wore out three trucks, 22 wheelbarrows, 3,700 pairs of gloves, three dogs and one old man.
The wall honours a story Hendrix told about his great-great-grandmother, Te-lah-nay, a Yuchi woman removed to the west who, by the family's account, spent five years walking back to the Tennessee River, the river her people called the Singing River. It is family history rather than documented record, and Hendrix told it in his book If the Legends Fade. Wichahpi, he said, means like unto the stars. Hendrix died in February 2017, aged 83, and his family has kept the wall since. It stands on private land.
Getting there
34.9475, -87.8233
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
