Mileposts are located on the east side of the parkway beginning at Natchez. The references for points of interest are given to the nearest tenth of a mile. On the map every tenth milepost is marked in red.
8.1 Temporary Terminus. The junction with U.S. 61 serves as the parkway's temporary southern terminus.
8.7 Old Trace. Here is a section of the first trace.
10.3 Emerald Mound. Emerald Mound is the second largest Indian temple mound in the United States. It was built and used between A.D. 1300 and 1600 by the forerunners of the Natchez Indians. These Indians used a natural hill as a base, which they reshaped by trimming the top and filling the sides to form a great primary platform, 770 feet long, 435 feet wide, and 35 feet high. At the west end still stands a thirty-five secondary mound once topped by a ceremonial structure.
12.1 Turpin Creek. Picnic area, no marker.
12.4 Loess Bluff. Deposits of topsoil (loess) were blown here during the Ice Age.
15.5 Mount Locust. At this restored historic house, one of the first stands in Mississippi, interpretive programs are given February through November. Restrooms, exhibits, and ranger station.
17.5 Coles Creek. Picnic area, no marker.
18.4 Bullen Creek. A self-guiding trail leads through a mixed hardwood-pine forest. The walk takes 15 minutes.
39.2 Port Gibson. Ranger station.
45.1 Sunken Trace. Self-guiding trail. Allow five minutes to walk through a deeply eroded section of the original trace.
45.7 Grindstone Ford / Mangum Site. North-bound travelers used to consider themselves in wild country once they crossed the ford on Bayou Pierre. Artifacts found here tell about the prehistoric people who lived in this area.
52.4 Owens Creek Waterfall. Only after heavy rainfall does water fill the stream and set the waterfall singing. Over the years the water table has dropped several feet and the spring that feeds Owens Creek has all but disappeared. Little remains of a scene once familiar to residents of Rocky Springs. Picnic tables.
54.8 Rocky Springs. A short trail from the upper parking area leads to the old townsite. Camping, picnicking, ranger station, restrooms, phone, and part of the old trace.
61.0 Lower Choctaw Boundary. This line bounded, north and south, lands taken up by new settlers of the Mississippi country and lands of the Choctaw.
73.5 Dean's Stand. Many framers ran stands such as this one to supplement their meager income. Picnic tables.
78.3 Battle of Raymond. This Civil War battle, a part of the Vicksburg campaign in 1863, was fought nearby.
The parkway is not completed from milepost 87.0 to 101.5. Use I-20, I-220 and I-55 as connecting routes.
102.4 Mississippi Crafts Center. Sales and demonstrations of Mississippi crafts are featured. Exhibits, information, and restrooms.
104.5 Brashear's Stand and Old Trace. This inn was advertised as "a house of entertainment in the wilderness" to travelers in 1806. Two portions of the original trace is nearby. A five-minute loop walk lets you see both sections and lets you stroll down a deeply eroded sunken part of the Old Natchez Trace.
105.6 Reservoir Overlook. Ross Barnett Reservoir on the Pearl River parallels the parkway for eight miles. This 50-square-mile reservoir is formed by an earth-filled dam.
106.9 Boyd Mounds. These earthen mound burials were built from 800 to 1100. Archaeologists tell us that there was a house here around A.D. 500 and that the pottery found in the mounds was made before A.D. 700. The population was probably continuous over centuries with customs being handed from generation to generation, relying on fields, forests, and streams for food. The simple social system was probably based on the family and close relatives. In this one-hundred-foot-long mound, archaeologists found the remains of forty-one burials. The mound is really three mounds in one. Differences in the types of pottery found in each indicate that the construction of the mounds was separated by a considerable lapse of time.
107.9 West Florida Boundary. At the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Great Britain gained control of the territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River except for the New Orleans area. The northern boundary of West Florida was first established at thirty-one degrees north latitude. It was soon determined that settlement was too restricted. In 1764, Great Britain moved the boundary north to thirty-two degrees, twenty-eight minutes into the land of the Choctaw and Creek.
122.0 Cypress Swamp. Water tupelo and bald cypress trees can live in deep water for long periods. After taking root in summer when the swamp is nearly dry, the seedlings can stay alive in water deep enough to kill other plants. This trail leads to an abandoned river channel. As the channel fills with silt and vegetation, black willow, sycamore, red maple, and other trees will gradually replace the bald cypress and tupelo. There's no need to hurry, for the change will take several hundred years. Allow 20 minutes for the walk.
122.6 River Bend/Pearl River. In 1698 the French explorer Pierre LeMoyne Sieur d'Iberville sailed into the mouth of this river on found pearls. He named it "River of Pearls." The Natchez Trace, one hundred years later, avoided the marshy lowlands by following the ridge between the Pearl and the Big Black for 150 miles. The last 75 miles of the river course have served since 1812 as a boundary between Mississippi and Louisiana. Picnic area.
128.4 Upper Choctaw Boundary. Self-guiding trail. Allow 10 minutes to walk in area that features southern pines. A line of trees marks this dividing line.
130.9 Yockanookany picnic area.
135.5 Robinson Road. Dating from 1821 this road connected Jackson and Columbus, Mississippi. Designation of the Robinson Road as the mail route in 1822 drew much of the traffic from the northern Mississippi section of the Natchez Trace, which quickly lost importance. No longer was the Trace the only direct road through the wilderness from the East to the old Southwest. Picnic tables.
140.0 Red Dog Road. Named for a Choctaw chief, the road was opened in 1834 running to Canton, Mississippi.
145.1 Myrick Creek. Self-guiding trail. Allow 10 minutes to learn about the beavers here.
154.3 Holly Hill. Picnic area, no marker.
159.7 Kosciusko ranger station.
160.0 Museum/Information Center, Koscuisko. Kosciusko chamber of commerce volunteers provide travel information for the parkway and local area.
164.3 Hurricane Creek. Self-guiding trail. Allow 15 minutes to walk in area that identifies plants found in different soil conditions. The trail descends to the vegetation that thrives in the wet bottomland along Hurricane Creek. The path winds upward among plants growing in soil of medium dampness and on to the top of a dry hill before returning. The differences in vegetation are due largely to the varying water content of the soil.
175.6 Cole Creek. This short self-guiding trail leads through a tupelo/baldcypress swamp.
176.3 Bethel Mission. About one-half mile northwesterly, Bethel, meaning "house of God," was opened in 1822 as one of thirteen Choctaw mission stations. Picnic tables.
184.8 Yowani picnic area (Closed in winter.)
180.7 French Camp / The Drane House. Construction of the Col. James Drane house began in 1846 using a waterpowered saw. Moved to this location in 1981, the house in now owned and operated by the French Camp Academy. Louis LeFleur established a stand here in 1812. It became a school in 1822 and remains one to this day. A sorghum mill adjacent to the cabin operates during the fall sorghum season. Open Monday through Saturday, 8:30 A.M. to 5 P.M.
193.1 Jeff Busby Park. Picnic area, campground, service station, store, phone, and restrooms. Self-guiding trail. On a clear day from atop Little Mountain you can see about 20 miles. The overlook is on one of the highest points (603 feet) in Mississippi. There is a one-half mile-long loop nature trail that descends into a shady hollow. Allow 30 minutes. A one-half-mile-long side trail from the loop leads to the campground.
198.6 Old Trace. A portion of the original roadway leads into the woods.
201.3 Ballard Creek. Picnic tables, no interpretive marker.
203.5 Pigeon Roost. A reminder of the millions of migration passenger pigeons that once roosted in trees in this area. The species has been completely destroyed. Folsom's stand and trading post, operated by Nathaniel and David Folsom, stood near here.
213.3 Line Creek. This was the boundary between lands of the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes.
214.5 Dancy Ranger Station.
221.4 Old Trace. Part of the original trace crosses the parkway here.
232.4 Bynum Mounds. Prehistoric people built these mounds between 100 B.C. and 200 A.D. Exhibits describe their life.
233.2 Witch Dance. The very name conjures visions of eerie midnight's, swirling black capes, and brooms stacked against a nearby tree. The old folks say the witches gathered here to dance and wherever their feet touched the ground the grass withered and died, never to grow again. Impossible? Maybe so, but look around. Try to find a hidden spot where no grass grows. Picnic area and horse trail access.
241.4 Chickasaw Agency. U.S. agents to the Chickasaw lived from 1802 to 1825 west of here on the Old Natchez Trace. Picnic tables.
243.1 Davis Lake. This is the access point to the U.S. Forest Service picnicking and summer camping area.
243.3 Hernando de Soto. Spanish explorer of the Mississippi spent the winter of 1540-41 near here.