Sight · Natchez Trace Parkway
Where postriders swapped tired horses on the old mail road
Overview
This roadside pullout at milepost 249.6 marks the site of Tockshish, a community of American Indians and American settlers that grew up along the old Natchez Trace. The name comes from a Chickasaw word meaning "tree root." It is a short interpretive stop rather than a destination in itself, but the story it tells is one of the more specific pieces of Trace history you can pick up from the car.
Parkwolf’s verdictWhy stopMap
Plan your stop
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Natchez Trace Tour Guide
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Natchez Trace Parkway. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this area
The Promise at Pontotoc Creek“Near here, Chickasaw leaders signed the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek in 1832, under pressure from the United States to leave their homeland.”
Plays on the road 0.3 mi from Tockshish Historic Site in the Parkwolf Natchez Trace Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
“Fantastic app with many points of information… It’s great to just turn on while you’re driving and it gives you an audio tour of the national Park. We love it!!!!”
Guide
John McIntosh, a British agent to the Choctaws, first settled here before 1770. In 1801 his settlement was designated the second post office between Nashville, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi, and it became a relay station where postriders traded weary horses for fresh ones. That detail is what makes the site worth a pause: this was working infrastructure for mail moving hundreds of miles by horseback.
No post office or settlement buildings remain. The name and the story are what survive, so come expecting to read and imagine rather than to tour anything.
Read the panel in daylight, since the interpretation is the whole point and there is nothing to see after dark. Treat Tockshish as one link in a longer Parkway drive, stringing it together with other historic stops along the route rather than driving out for it alone.
The experience is modest and text-based. If you are not interested in the postal and settlement history of the Trace, you can pass this one without missing much. Visitors who do stop tend to describe it as a pleasant, quiet pause in the woods, which is about the right expectation to bring.
Wildlife
39 sightingsAmerican AlligatorMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
35 sightingsWhite-tailed DeerMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
53 sightingsWild TurkeyMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
28 sightingsGreat Blue HeronMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
29 sightingsRed-headed WoodpeckerMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
32 sightingsTurkey VultureMost seen around noonSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Natchez Trace. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
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Parkwolf’s Natchez Trace ranking
The audio tour guide for the drive, plus offline maps, trails, and wildlife heatmaps for when the signal drops.
