Milepost 0 of the Natchez Trace Parkway, at Liberty Road in Natchez, is the southern end of a road that took more than 67 years to build. Ground was broken on September 16, 1937, and in 1938 Congress established the parkway under the National Park Service, but construction stopped for the Second World War, and money and rights of way slowed it for decades afterward. The last gaps, 15 miles at Jackson and the 8 miles into Natchez, were closed in May 2005, and the final section was completed on May 21 of that year. The parkway runs 444 miles to its northern end below Nashville and commemorates the footpath used by the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee and Natchez nations.
Natchez, the river market, was the starting point of the Old Trace. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, flatboatmen floated produce down the Mississippi to sell at Natchez and New Orleans and, unable to work their boats back against the current, walked home north along the Trace.
Mississippi's early parkway money went mostly to the stretch between Jackson and Tupelo, with one exception: twelve miles near Natchez, the section that took in Mount Locust, the last surviving stand on the Trace, which the government acquired in 1937.
Getting there
31.5471, -91.3666
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop is an audio tour guide app that tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
