NATCHEZ, Miss. — Natchez National Historical Park has installed new interpretive wayside panels at the Forks of the Road site, featuring narratives drawn from U.S. Colored Troops pension records. The exhibits, which replace deteriorated panels, highlight the experiences of formerly enslaved people and recount how African American soldiers helped destroy the slave market.
A new location sign, larger than the original, now stands on the south side of the site.
Jeff Mansell, lead historian for the Natchez National Historical Park, said the changes were needed because “the old panels had deteriorated terribly and were beyond repair.” The new panels were installed in July 2026, shortly before the Julyteenth celebration.
Mansell said the new content was drawn directly from the pension applications filed by former U.S. Colored Troops veterans, their widows, and their children.
“Most of them specifically reference the Forks of the Road – either being trafficked there, or visiting their husband, son or veteran there in the regimental barracks or the hospital which were located there on the site,” Mansell said. “We intentionally looked for records that specifically mentioned the Forks of the Road. We wanted to highlight experiences that took place on the site itself.”
Mansell drafted the text on all the panels. Stephanie Metzler, graphic designer with the Southeast Region of the National Park Service, created the background images for the wayside panels.
Wayside panels
One panel, “Pressing Their Claim,” uses pension records to tell the heart-felt story of Elzira Bright:
“I was born in Richmond, Madison County, Kentucky and I belonged to a man named Allen Anderson. My father was Hickman Hickenbottem and my mother was Minerva and we all belonged to the same man. I was sold to a negro trader when I was 19 years old and he brought me to Natchez with a gang of a hundred head and I was sold at the forks of the road to Faultneroy of Jefferson County and lived on his place until the war came.
“His place was counted 16 miles from Natchez, Mississippi. Allen Lewis came from Boyle County, Ky. And the same trader, Dick White, brought us down in the same gang. I was taken from Richmond to Lexington, Ky. And there I met up with Allen Lewis and we were brought to Natchez together and sold to Frank Faultneroy and taken to his place in the Church Hill community.”
Mansell noted: “Elzira Bright’s account is similar to many who were trafficked in the domestic slave trade. A trader transported her from Kentucky to Natchez alongside a group of one hundred people, including her future husband. Though her story represents countless others sold at the Forks of the Road market, Eliza Brtight stands apart because we know her name and fate.”
Bright was approved to receive her pension in 1903.
The earlier panels were created by Ser Seshsh Ab Heter-C. M. Boxley and the Friends of the Forks of the Road. Mansell said the park service was involved in the initial creation of the site’s free-standing kiosk, which it has refurbished.
Mansell said the new wayside panels were funded by the park.
Another new feature is Freedom Hall, formerly the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, at 105 Devereaux Drive on the east side of the Forks of the Road site. The park acquired this site with assistance from its three partners: the National Park Foundation, the Archaeological Conservancy, and the Trust for Public Land.
On July 12, 2026, the park held its first program at the site that featured a presentation by Mansell titled, “When Freedom Came to Natchez.”
“Freedom Hall will eventually serve as the visitor contact station at the site, where a ranger or guide will be there,” Mansell said. “We hope to have a film, and there will be more extensive exhibits on site for visitors to experience.”
Free-standing kiosk
Other new features include history panels displayed in the free-standing kiosk. One section, titled, “Leveled to the Ground,” describes how the slave market site came to an end.
The panel notes:
“The last sales at the Forks happened in early 1863, just months before the U.S. Army occupied Natchez that July. The arrival of Federal troops brought freedom to the tens of thousands of enslaved people in the Natchez District. Freedpeople (persons recently released from slavery) flocked into town from the surrounding countryside. Many settled here at the Forks near an encampment of African American soldiers, known as the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT).
“In the fall, soldiers stationed in Natchez were given orders to tear down the slave pens at Forks of the Road. Men of the newly-created 58th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment willingly joined the efforts. With some poetic justice, African American soldiers who had previously been enslaved and sold as property at Forks of the Road carried out the physical destruction of the slave market.”
The panel includes the image of a letter published in the Milwaukee Sentinel describing the event.
The Forks of the Road was the second largest slave market in the Deep South. The site was donated to the National Park Service in 2021 and expanded through additional acquisitions in 2022. Mansell said plans for the site’s long-term development are underway, though no final decisions have been made. He said land acquisition around the site is continuing.
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