Existing comment:
Champions of the Trace:
In the early 1900s, a group of women mounted a long, sophisticated, yet homespun campaign to create the Natchez Trace Parkway. They focused on two goals: to memorialize the Natchez Trace and build a modern parkway along its route.
Success some gradually. Led by Elizabeth Jones, Mississippi's Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) began placing commemorative markers along the Trace.
On the 1930s, the politically savvy Roane Fleming Byrnes and members of the Natchez Trace Association joined the effort. As Byrnes recalls, she used "meatloaf and moonship" to court allies that included US Congressman Jeff Busby. It was Busby who introduced a successful bill to survey the Natchez Trace, the first step in creating the Parkway.
Although the last section of the Natchez Trace Parkway was completed in 2005, the National Park Service and its partners continue to protect the Parkway today. |