Sunken Trace

This early interstate road building venture produced a snake-infested, mosquito-beset, robber-haunted, Indian-traveled forest path that tried everyone’s strength and patience. Lamented by the pious and cussed by the impious, it became so waterlogged at times that wagons could not be pulled through, and travelers cut new paths through the nearby woods. Here, three cuts were made to avoid mud into which oxcarts and wagons sank, making progress slow, dangerous, or even impossible.

Tennessee · United States