Page "Natchez Trace Parkway" Paragraph 10

Improved communications ( steam boats, stagecoach lines, and railroads ) and the development of ports along the rivers named above, ( e. g., Natchez, Memphis, Tennessee, Paducah, Kentucky, Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky ) made the route obsolete as a means of passenger and freight commerce.

As a result, no major population centers were born or developed along the Trace, because of its alignment, between its termini Nashville and Natchez.

The two cities of note, near or on the Trace's alignment ( Jackson, Mississippi and Tupelo, Mississippi ), developed only as a result of their alignment along axis of communication different from the Trace.

To this day there has not been constructed a dedicated rail alignment between Natchez and Nashville, even though the Trace's alignment would be the shortest distance between the two cities.