Built in 1821, Robinson Road passed nearly entirely through the country of the Choctaw Indians and linked Jackson, Mississippi, with Columbus, the center of the settlements on the Tombecbee. There it connected with Andrew Jackson’s Military Road through Florence, Alabama, to Nashville. Its designation as the mail route in 1822 drew much of the traffic from the northern Mississippi section of the Natchez Trace, which quickly lost importance, ending the Trace’s status as the only direct road through the wilderness from the East to the old Southwest.