Administrative History of Natchez Trace Parkway

DISTRIBUTION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY (1'1 copies) Flit. : Superintendent Hl41chez.. Assistant Superintendent IOU.t! Administrative OFficer Plfr/<.WfA'I Chief of Maintenance Chief of Interpretation & Visitor Services Chief Park Ranger Landscape Architect Staff Assistane 6 Subdistrict Rangers: Nashvi 118, Cherokee, Tupelu, Dancy, Port Gib_on, and Kosciusko SERO Library NATR Li brary North District Interpreter South District Interpreter Division of History, WASO PLEASE RETURN TO: TECHNICAl. INFORMATION CENTER DENVER SERVICE CENTER NATIONAL PARK SERVICE B&WScans L·l':>· WQ3 "A full and accurate account of this phase of parkway hIs tory can only be produced after all relevant data will have been extracted from the papers of Busby and Stephens. Since Senator Harrison had some part in the origins of the Park way, his papers also should be looked into. These papers, believe, are In the University of Mississippi Library and are being catalogued. Senator Bilbo's papers should yield some insight into parkway history. They now are in the library of the University of Southern Mississippi, and also are being catalogued. "The essay, 'Evolution of a Parkway Concept,' which should be the heart of the work, suffers so seriously from Insuffi cient documentation as to require redoing by an experienced hand. To make it a viable work, the compiier should have untrammeled access to the files of both the Service and the Department, particularly the papers of Secretary Ickes. For a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of the idea, something more than a cursory look at the Blue Ridge exper ience should be had. To assure· the author of a keener appreciation of the many differing views and clashes of opinion, he should be afforded an opportunity to Interview and In the immediate future, Messrs. Drury, Vlnt, R.F. Lee, Tolson, Truitt, Allen, Cox, Zimmer, Kahler, Porter, Young, and Gardner. Is there any I ikellhood that A.E. Demaray kept a diary? If so, It could prove valuable. "This project has been In the mill for many years, and has suffered because It always had the lowest priority on every research program. Only little odds and ends of time could be devoted to it because the research staff normally had deadlines to meet. "Most of the research was done by Dawson Phelps. However, both Guy Braden and Bill Kay made significant contributions. Dean Crabbs did the research and wrote Part 3 of Chapter Xl. I suggest that, for a more useful story and keener apprecia tion of the Internal development of parkway management, the Assistant Superintendent write Part 1 of Chapter XI, and that division heads write Parts 2, 4, 5, and 6. Only a knowledgeable employee of the Bureau of Public Roads could write Part 7~ "I hope that the Superintendent can find time to share his knowledge and understanding of parkway history by dictating his memOirs, to be the last chapter, XII, entitled, 'Retro spect: 1934-1965.'" Dawson A. Pheips March 1955 2 THE OLD TRAIL The Natchez Trace Parkway Is one of the units of the National Park System. Its birthday is May 18,1938. This date represents a climax In the overall story or history of the Natchez Trace rather than the beginning. On that day the President of the United States signed a measure, hitherto passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States, creating the Natchez Trace Parkway with the proviso that it be administered by the National Park Service. "Going West" is our national epiC. During the years 1783 to 1819, while diplomats and statesmen were arguing over Our national boundaries, pioneer homeseekers were crossing the mountains into the Old Southwest. They settled and populated the lands to and beyond the Mississippi River. Within a generation, they had created five new commonwealths--Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. All had been admitted to the Union as States by 1819. Peopling of the Old Southwest left many landmarks, high points In the historic process which transformed a region larger than France from a "howl ing wi Iderness" to a land of farm or plantation, village or city, trail or road, a land which millions of Americans call home. These landmarks are many and various. One of the best remembered is the Natchez Trace, a road which for two decades was used by the men and women who created the Old Southwest and made it an imperishable part of the American Union. Long before the white man came to the Old Southwest, Indians used the trail which Was to become the Natchez Trace. Indians who lived in what is now middle Tennessee traded with tribes of the lower Mississippi. In so dOing, they beat out a trail which the white man found useful. Eventuall y, I t became a segment of the most Important means of overland communication between the National Capital and the dis tant frontier outposts in MiSSissippi and Louisiana. For more than two decades it was the most significant highway of the Old Southwest, and one of the more important in the nation. It was an avenue of exploration, International rival ry, warfare, trade, settlement, and development. This old road, with Its dIstinctive landmarks, forests and canebrakes, ridges and swamps, recalls an early and heroic chapter in our national epic. Today the old pioneer road is being paralleled by a national parkway, an elongated park \~herein are preserved some existing parts of the old trail and many landmarks associated with events and people who used It during a stirring and eventful period of American history. 1-1 Despite the color, drama, and adventure associated with it, the Natchez Trace, except for those who I ived along its tortuous course, for a century was all but forgotten. Tennesseans, Mississippians, and AlabamIans who had heard exciting and gory tales from the lips of men who had adventured along the Old Trace, added to and passed them on. In such a fashion, its history became a part of the folklore of the region, but never elicited nationwide popular interest. Singularly enough, it was neglected by writers of western fiction and by the movies and radio. Other frontier roads--the Wilderness Road, the Old National Road, the Santa Fe Trail, and the Oregon Trail--had vastly greater fame. Josiah Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, narrating in a vivid fashion the story of the Santa Fe Trail, was published in 1844, while Francis Parkman's Or~on Trail appeared in 1849. Both were repeatedly published and became minor classics, well known in mi 11 ions of American homes. These books, innumerable novels, biographies, poems, and eventually movies and television made Incidents and personalities associated with these colorful roads famil iar to even the youngest of school children. Why then did Congress choose to commemorate the Natchez Trace rather than one of the better known historic roads? The answer Is, as will appear later in this history, that an ambitious and alert Congressman happened at a propitious time to "hit on an idea" and fOllowed It up. 1-2 II MISSISSIPPI DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION DISCOVER THE NATCHEZ TRACE The movement to commemorate the old road began in 1905 when Mrs. Egbert Jones of Holly SprIngs suggested to the Mississippi Daughters of the American Revolution at their first statewide conference that they "commemorate the Trace" by erecting granite markers, with appropriate Inscriptions, in every county through which it ran. How much of its history was known to Mrs. Jones and her coileagues is impossible to guess. Perhaps they had read (John Swain's "The Natchez Trace" In the September 1905 issue of ) Everybody's Magazine. Since it contained precious little "hIstory, Mrs. Jones must have been mainly Inspired by the flamboyant folklore of the old road.1 Prior to this time, neIther artiCle nor book on the old road had appeared in print. Experiences of men who had made the journey between Natchez and Nashville had occasionally been published. Probably the best known was from the pen of James Parton, who, in 18&G, published a Life of Andrew Jackson, a chapter of which was devoted to the march of the Tennessee Volunteers over the Old Trace in 1813. The less well known narrative of Francis Baily, an Englishman who had made the same journey in 1797, was published in 1856. Aside from Parton and Baily, only a few short notices in treatises, biographies, or memoirs had been put into print. It was unknown to the reading public and familiar to only a few special ists working in the h)story of the Old Southwest. Mrs. Jones' idea was slow germinating. Only In 1908, after she had become the State Regent of the Mississippi Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, did her idea bear tangible fruit. Erecting the markers became an official Society project. Simultaneously, patriotic societies in Alabama and Tennessee were invited to participate in the project and erect similar markers in their respective States. Progress WaS slow. Money was scarce. It required a real effort by the Society to raise $230 to erect the first marker at Natchez in 1909. Another was erected in 1910 at Port Gibson, and still another at Kosciusko in 1912. The fourth was located in Tishomingo County in 1913 On the State line, to which the Alabama Society contributed half the cost. In 1914, the Lee County marker was erected. Rather hopefully, Mrs. A. F. Fox of West Point, in 1<).10, commented on what had been achieved. "It requires no stretch of the imagination to look back upon a time when the Natchez Trace was practically unknown to the people of Mississippi x •• - But with pardonable prIde we I 1-1 claIm for the Mississippi SocIety of the DAR the credit for awakenIng general publIc Interest x K = n At thIs point the mild response to the marking project produced discouragement, If not despair, and led to a change in tactics.

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