also built temples and other ceremonial structures here. At milepost 41, I walk the pathways of Sunken Trace, indented below ground level like a dry creek bed. The eroded Sunken Trace is part of the original path trodden through the centuries by Native Americans and then set- tlers using the trail on their way to Texas and beyond. We drive for about an hour to Jackson, the state capi- tal, and stop for lunch at the iconic Brent’s Drug & Soda Fountain. Brent’s is no longer a drug store—the former prescription area is now the kitchen of this 1950s-style soda fountain serving milkshakes, ice cream floats, hamburgers, and fries. Scenes from the restaurant were included in the 2011 Academy Award nominated movie “The Help,” set in Jackson. I snap photos of the Mississippi State Capitol, but a better tourist attraction is the Old Capitol Museum, the statehouse from 1839 through 1903. The Old Capitol was the site of the 1861 Secession Convention and where famous nineteenth-century political giants like Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and Jefferson Davis once spoke. “That’s where Mississippi seceded from the Union and where it was allowed back into the Union after a very painful and long reconstruction period,” explains Jackson tour guide Mary Current.
Props help illustrate the history of the rooms and halls, including the old governor’s office, the Supreme Chancery Court with its three-judge bench, and the House and Senate chambers. Under a domed Senate chamber is a circular and columned debate floor, where mannequins showcase what an 1870’s debate might have looked like. Nearby are the construction sites for the Mississippi History and Civil Rights museums, expected to open in 2017. “You have to understand that Mississippi has always been considered the most racist state in the Union and that we’d never ever come around,” explains Current. “Now we’re the first state in the Union to fund a new civil rights museum. They’re going to be attached so visitors will know about Mississippi’s past, hopefully its present, and maybe even get a look at its future.” Back on Natchez Trace, our next stop is Reservoir Overlook at milepost 105. We behold an expansive view of the 50-square-mile Ross R. Barnett Reservoir just north of Jackson that parallels the Trace for eight miles. What I find most interesting, however, is at the tip of the reservoir. At milepost 122, I walk the boardwalks over the Cypress Swamp, where the trunks of water tupelo and bald cypress
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