Natchez Trace State Park
Template:Short description Template:For Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox protected area Natchez Trace State Park is a state park located in western Tennessee, in the United States. It was named for the historic Natchez Trace woodland path, an important wilderness trail during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The park covers more than Template:Convert and features several wilderness trails, camping, horseback riding, and waterfront activities.
HistoryEdit
BackgroundEdit
Natchez Trace State Park gets its name from the Natchez Trace, a Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee woodland highway that was an important wilderness road for the American frontiersmen during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It had been in use as a trade path by the American Indians, however, for hundreds of years before that.<ref>The Natchez Trace; Tennessee Yesterday website; accessed April 2014.</ref> A western spur of the trace ran through part of the modern-day park.<ref name=parks>The Natchez Trace; Tennessee State Official Website; "Environment – Parks;" accessed April 2014.</ref>
The parkEdit
The Template:Convert park was built during the New Deal on land bought from residents who could no longer farm the land due to erosion.<ref name=parks/> Along with many acres of woodlands, the land included four lakes. A swimming beach and a 47-room resort inn and restaurant complex were built. Today, the park includes cabins, a group lodge, camping areas, picnicking sites, playgrounds, a ball-field, a regulation pistol firing range, hiking trails, a wrangler camp, Template:Convert of horse riding trails, a park store, and an archery range.
Park activitiesEdit
Cub Lake (Template:Convert) offers swimming, jon-boats and paddle boats. Boats are rented between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Cub Lake offers a free public swim beach.
The large recreational lake, Pin Oak Lake at Template:Convert, features two boat ramps. Water skiing in the park is allowed on this lake only. Other activities are fishing, picnicking, swimming, R.V. camping and more. Over-night guests are not required to have a permit. The Pin Oak Lodge offers a swimming pool for inn and cabin guests.
Browns Lake, Template:Convert, and Maples Lake, Template:Convert, each have a single boat ramp. Jon-boats, life jackets and paddles are made available on a first-come, first-served basis, and permits are available at both sites.
Natchez Trace Park has Template:Convert of riding trails in the south end of the park.
LocationEdit
Natchez Trace is located in Carroll, Henderson, and Benton counties, near the unincorporated community of Wildersville. Interstate 40 bisects the park, which is roughly equidistant from Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee.