User:Leeking337/sandbox/Robinson Road, Mississippi

The Robinson Road is a historical road in the US state of Mississippi. It ran from Columbus to Natchez.

The road appeared on a map of Mississippi from 1831 that illustrated the Robinson Road extending from Columbus to the Natchez Trace near Wiggins.

From Columbus, the road traversed through Agency in Oktibbeha County, on to Louisville, on to Carthage, and then to Canton and Jackson.

Other potential references

 * National Park Service, 1976, courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History
 * Historical Marker at HBDb.orb
 * NatchezTraceTravel.com
 * OktibbehaHeritageMuseum.com
 * 1827 map

National Park Service
The following text is closely based the National Park Service, 1976, courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. It could be used as source material once the article is written.

When the western half of the Mississippi Territory became a state in 1817, the greater part of the lands of the two cessions became a part of the Alabama Territory. They were fertile, lying for the most part in the Tombigbee and Black Warrior river valleys; and soon were opened for settlement. The small part of the area which fell to Mississippi was settled rapidly. A Mississippi writer, for example, lists the names of 36 white men who had established themselves east of the Tombigbee by 1819. The growth of population was so rapid, that on February 9, 1821, the Governor of Mississippi approved an act of the legislature organizing Monroe County, containing about 450 square miles in what is now Lowndes and Monroe Counties

The new county was isolated from the rest of the state. Communication with the state capital was difficult and circuitous. The distance via the only available route to Jackson was approximately 200 miles; by a direct route through the wilderness the distance was only 130 to 140 miles. Almost immediately after the establishment of the new county, there arose an insistent demand for a more direct road to Jackson.

The construction of such a road was impeded by relations with the Indians. It would cross more than 120 miles of Choctaw country. Hitherto, roads through Indian lands had been opened only by the Federal Government; and this only after the consent of the Indians had been secured. The Mississippi Congressional delegation promptly went to work and obtained passage of an act, approved March 21, 1821, authorizing the construction and appropriation of $5,000 for a road.

The construction of the road, began in late summer or early fall 1821. The contractor who surveyed the road was Raymond Robinson, one of the founders of Raymond, Mississippi. For this reason, it was popularly, and later officially, called the Robinson Road. The road crossed many sluggish creeks and rivers, all of which were bordered by wide swampy areas and this made construction difficult. By 1830, dissatisfaction with the Robinson Road, which was probably then the most important thoroughfare in the state, led the state legislature to seek new means to bring about its improvement. In 1830, toll gates were to be installed once the toll keepers improved the road. This venture did not work. The route of the road was from the center of Madison County to Columbus, Mississippi. The road received a great deal of use and significantly helped develop portions of the state through which it ran. Today, many parts of it are used as part of the Federal highway system (US 82) and other county roads.

LegendsOfAmerica.com
Per www.legendsofamerica.com/ms-natcheztrace/6/"

Robinson Road – The road crossing the Parkway follows the Robinson Road, which was built in 1821, nearly all of it passing through the country of the Choctaw Indians. It joined Jackson and Columbus, the center of the settlements on the Tombigbee River. There it connected with Andrew Jackson’s Military Road through Florence, Alabama to Nashville, Tennessee. Designation of the Robinson Road as the mail route in 1822 drew much of the traffic from the northern Mississippi section of the Natchez Trace, which quickly lost importance. No longer was the Trace the only direct road through the wilderness from the east to the old southwest.