175 Years Later: Documenting the Historic Buildings of the Trail of Tears

By Amy Kostine, Trail of Tears Project Historian, Center for Historic Preservation

This segment of the Bell Route of the Trail of Tears, located in Village Creek State Park in Arkansas, was once part of the old Memphis to Little Rock Road.

It has been 175 years since more than 15,000 Cherokee were forced from their homes to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) on the Trail of Tears. Have you ever thought about the roads the Cherokee took or the buildings they passed by and asked yourself how much of this historic landscape still exists? With the hope of answering that question, the Center for Historic Preservation (CHP) is partnering with the National Trails Intermountain Region of the National Park Service to conduct a nine-state survey to identify and document historic buildings associated with the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. Over the last year, we have been out on the…