Beaten Paths

TPA ACCOMPLISHMENTS 8/04/2020 Trm [ In causa mortis it seems appropriate to assemble a list of the Trading Path Association's accomplishments over the past twenty years. Most of those accomplishments are indirect as planned. Starting in 2000 we raised money solely to pay for transportation costs and we set off on a campaign to goad others to do the smart thing and preserve historical artifacts.]  What We Did We operated at the county level in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Time and resource availability eventually limited our operation to North Carolina. Our method was to contact and meet with county and city managers to pitch them on heritage tourism as a  low cost and high return economic development. Tourists come, spend and leave so there is no requirement for infrastructure and payroll increases; roads, police, and more firemen needed, just signage. Our successes from north to south include: Petersburg, VA: Long term plan to locate and excavate Abra...

THIGPEN TRACE “Thigpen Trace, the oldest military road in Georgia, was cut by James Thigpen to transport military supplies of Col. James Moore, former Carolina governor. It followed a well beaten trail of the Indians from the mountains to the sea in use before the era of the white man. Coming from South Carolina above the Broad River, along the Chattahoochee water divide to the Gulf of Mexico, it avoided all swamps and great rivers. The English claimed the territory as Carolina while the Spanish claimed it as Florida. Col. Moore led the English in an attack down Thigpen Trail  and “made Carolina as safe as the conquest of the Spanish and Appalachee (Indians) can make it.” GHM 159-3 GEORGIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION 1956 Perhaps the most important road in North Carolina history,  Thigpen's Trace is a road most have never heard about. It has a highway marker in Georgia but none in South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina. It dates back to 1704 and profo...