Grindstone Ford

• A flat, easy walk from the parking area onto a sunken section of the Old Natchez Trace, worn well below the surrounding ground by generations of feet, hooves and wagons. Some stretches drop roughly ten feet between the embankments.
• Interpretive signs along the route, including one for Daniel Burnett's Stand. Burnett kept a stand near the crossing and served as speaker of the Territorial House, a principal negotiator with the Choctaws, and a framer of the state constitution.
• A spur to Grindstone Ford Cemetery, with old tombstones under the trees.
• The ford area itself at Bayou Pierre. The route brings you to the crossing area and loops back rather than taking you across the bayou.

Many Old Trace pull-offs show a worn roadbed. This one adds the crossing that made the road matter. Northbound Kaintucks, boatmen who had floated cargo down the rivers and were walking home, came through here. Nearby Fort Deposit supplied the troops who cleared the Trace in 1801 and 1802, troops assembled in this vicinity during the Burr conspiracy, and soldiers crossed again during the War of 1812.

Routing is the weak point. Visitors regularly report that the trail and the cemetery spur can be hard to follow, and that markers are not always easy to spot or read. Locate the wooden sign at the trailhead before setting out, note where the spur branches, and be ready to backtrack. If you want a clearly marked, heavily signed history stop, other Parkway pull-offs are simpler; the reward here is the crossing itself.