Pigeon Roost

"Today on our journey along the Natchez Trace we come to Pigeon Roost which is just south of the junction of the Trace and Mississippi Highway 82.

"Pigeon Roost was the site of a trading post established before 1790, belonging to a New Englander named Nathaniel Folsom who was married to a Choctaw woman. Their son, David Folsom, followed in their footsteps operating the trading post, and was a strong supporter of both Indian education and of Christianity. In 1826 David Folsom was elected Chief of the Northeast District of the Choctaw Nation.

"PIGEON ROOST gets its name because passenger pigeons used to migrate through here by the millions. They roosted in the trees in this area. It is said that so many pigeons roosted here that their weight would brake the limbs of the greatest trees. In 1810 the ornithologist Alexander Wilson recorded that a flock observed by him was as much as 240 miles long, an estimated 2 and 1/4 billion pigeons. None of us traveling through here these days will see one of these birds, and more than likely you have never seen one, since the last known survivor of the species died in captivity in 1914.

"Join us next time when we'll visit Line Creek, the boundary between the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians. For Natchez Trace a road through the wilderness, I'm Frank Thomas."

For more about Natchez Trace: A Road Through the Wilderness, visit eddieandfrank.com