Today, the Natchez Trace Parkway is a peaceful road through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. But the old Trace was once known as the Devil’s Backbone, a dangerous route marked by robbery, murder and stories that became legend.
In The Devil’s Road, a four-part October series, Southern Mysteries explores the darker history and folklore of the Natchez Trace.
Part One begins at ancient Native American mound sites along the route and at Pharr Mounds in northern Mississippi, where a brutal murder in 1992 brought a much more recent story to this ancient landscape.
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Episode Sources
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “History & Culture.”
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “American Indian Mounds Along the Natchez Trace Parkway.”
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “Pharr Mounds, Milepost 286.7.”
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “Bynum Mounds, Milepost 232.4.”
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “Emerald Mound.”
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “Historic Places.”
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “Old Natchez Trace Sections.”
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “Trade From Afar,” Pharr Mounds interpretive exhibit and transcript.
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. “Objects and Ideas,” Pharr Mounds interpretive exhibit and transcript.
- National Park Service, Natchez Trace Parkway. Natchez Trace mound-site interpretive exhibits and archaeological timeline.
- United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. United States of America v. Danny McGee, No. 93-7503, July 8, 1994.
- United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. Federal proceedings arising from the murder of Thomas Alan Byram at Pharr Mounds.
- Tishomingo County News/The Vidette and Belmont News. “One Arrested in Murder of Iuka Man,” September 10, 1992.
- Tishomingo County News/The Vidette and Belmont News. Coverage of the federal indictments of Danny McGee and Greg Dingler, October 8, 1992.
- Tishomingo County News/The Vidette and Belmont News. Coverage of the upcoming federal murder trials and preliminary-hearing testimony, November 5, 1992.
- Tishomingo County News/The Vidette and Belmont News. Coverage of Danny McGee’s conviction and sentencing, 1993.
- Tishomingo County News/The Vidette and Belmont News. Coverage of Greg Dingler’s second-degree murder conviction, August 5, 1993.
Episode Music
Out of the Mines and Burial Grounds, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.