President Bryant Boswell at Colbert’s Ferry, May 2014
Video courtesy of C. Cappa Films, Nashville, www.natcheztracefilm.com
Category Archives: Living History
The best introduction to history is to experience it. The Association supports the National Park Service living history program, and it is developing a new program, through which it often partners with the parkway to bring history to life. Throughout the year, historic sites such as the Gordon House, Colbert’s Ferry, Mount Locust and Grinder’s Stand come to life with the sights and sounds of the period when the Natchez Trace and Natchez Road were important transportation corridors. The National Park Service began a living history program on the parkway in the 1970’s. The annual Meriwether Lewis Arts and Crafts Festival, which includes living history
demonstrations, is approaching its 40th year. Encampments at Mount Locust have focused on portrayals of life in the southern Mississippi area along the Natchez Trace. Regular living history events are scheduled at headquarters .
The association is developing a new living history program to provide additional living history events along the parkway. In 2012, we entered into a partnership with the National Park Service and the 7th U.S. Living History Association to begin a four- year commemoration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. Those events have prevented education stations to a few thousand school children in the three Natchez Trace states.
Many of those school children gave the event their “awesome” stamp of approval.
We are also developing relationships with the Chickasaw Nation and the Choctaw Nation to present accurate portrayals of their historic homelands. We support the annual Oka Kapasa Festival in Tuscumbia. Each September, they bring together Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and other American Indians to celebrate their American Indian heritage, and the close relationship the Tuscumbia community along the old Natchez Trace developed with the American Indians.
An active living history program along the parkway will make history real for younger generations and utilize the rich historic resources that relate to the old road and its communities. To see galleries of some of our past living history events, click on the following links:
- Muster on the Natchez Trace
- Expedition Natchez: Becoming Old Hickory
- Defending the Natchez Trace: Southeast American Indians In the War of 1812
For more information on Natchez Trace Parkway Association Living History, contact info@natcheztrace.org