Buzzard Roost is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Colbert County,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

, United States. Buzzard Roost had a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

in the 1850s, but it no longer exists.

Geography

Buzzard Roost is located three miles west of

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

U.S. Route 72 U.S. Route 72 (US 72) is an east–west United States highway that travels for from southwestern Tennessee, throughout North Mississippi, North Alabama, and southeastern Tennessee. The highway's western terminus is in Memphis, Tennessee a ...

History

Bernard Romans Bernard Romans ( 1720–1784) was a Dutch-born navigator, surveyor, cartographer, naturalist, engineer, soldier, promoter, and writer who worked in the British American colonies and the United States. His best known work, ''A Concise Natural History ...

' Map of 1772 indicated a place called "Chickianooe", which appears to be a misprint of the

Choctaw The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choct ...

word , or , meaning .

Levi Colbert Levi Colbert (June 2, 1834) was an early 19th-century Chickasaw leader and the namesake of Itawamba County, Mississippi. Early life and education Levi Colbert was born around 1759 in the Chickasaw Nation (present-day Alabama). He was the ...

Chickasaw The Chickasaw ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, United States. Their traditional territory was in northern Mississippi, northwestern and northern Alabama, western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. Their language is ...

Bench Chief, built his stand in Buzzard Roost in 1801. He ran an inn there with his family. An exhibit telling his story is part of the

Natchez Trace Parkway The Natchez Trace Parkway is a limited-access national parkway in the Southeastern United States that commemorates the historic Natchez Trace and preserves sections of that original trail. Its central feature is a two-lane road that extends 44 ...

. He is credited with changing the name from Buzzard Sleep to Buzzard Roost. In the 1840s, Armstead Barton built

Barton Hall Barton Hall is an on-campus field house on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. It is the site of the school's indoor track facilities, ROTC offices and classes, and Cornell Police. For a long time, Barton Hall was the larges ...

, also known as the Cunningham Plantation, an antebellum plantation house. Buzzard Roost was a stop on the

Memphis and Charleston Railroad The Memphis and Charleston Railroad, completed in 1857, was the first railroad in the United States to link the Atlantic Ocean with the Mississippi River. Chartered in 1846, the gauge railroad ran from Memphis, Tennessee, to Stevenson, Alabama ...

, between

Iuka, Mississippi Iuka is a city in and the county seat of Tishomingo County, Mississippi, United States. Its population was 3,028 at the 2010 census. Woodall Mountain, the highest point in Mississippi, is located just south of Iuka. History Iuka is built o ...

, and Cherokee Station, Alabama. Buzzard Roost Covered Bridge, built over Buzzard Roost Creek in 1860, was long, and located on "Allsboro Rd., which is part of the Natchez Trace Parkway System". It was destroyed by fire on July 15, 1972. In 1958, a type of

spear point In archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have been kept in the ...

dating from the Early to an early Middle Archaic period, the Buzzard Roost Creek Point, was named after a site on Buzzard Roost Creek, by James W. Cambron. Buzzard Roost was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

November 7, 1976. As of 2011, a Pratt pony truss bridge built over Buzzard Roost Creek in 1940 remains, although it is rated "structurally deficient."

References

External links

Natchez Trace Parkway - Buzzard Roost Spring, near Cherokee, AL
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Buzzard Roost Covered Bridge
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Alabama Unincorporated communities in Colbert County, Alabama National Register of Historic Places in Colbert County, Alabama Historic American Buildings Survey in Alabama National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Natchez Trace