Rocky Springs Campground (Natchez Trace Parkway milepost 54.8)

public land records

Researched — The record is detailed and internally consistent, and the coordinates land where the managing agency says this site is.

NPS Natchez Trace Parkway, nps.gov/natr/planyourvisit/camping.htm read 2026-08-13: 'The three Parkway campgrounds are free, primitive, and available on a first come, first serve basis.' They 'do not offer electricity, showers, or dump stations'. STAY LIMIT -- NPS CONTRADICTS ITSELF across three of its own pages and this was NOT resolved: camping.htm says 'The maximum stay at our campgrounds is 14 days per campground per calendar year'; nps.gov/thingstodo/tent-camping-on-the-natchez-trace.htm says 'Camping is permitted for 14 days total in a calendar year'; nps.gov/thingstodo/campgrounds-on-the-natchez-trace-parkway.htm says '14 consecutive days in any one campground and 30 days total for a calendar year'. Treat 14 days as the safe figure and verify with the park before publishing a number. 'The Natchez Trace Parkway does not allow dispersed camping.' Two pets max per site, leashed. THIS SITE: nps.gov/places/rocky-springs-campground-milepost-54-8.htm read 2026-08-13 -- 22-site campground at milepost 54.8, pull-through and back-in sites, first come first served, amenities listed as 'Picnic Table, Restroom, Restroom - Accessible, Water - Drinking/Potable'. Milepost is given as 54.8 on camping.htm and as 54 on the tent-camping page. Coordinate = OpenStreetMap way/683746121 'Rocky Springs Campground, milepost 54.8', operator=National Park Service -- the OSM feature's own milepost label matches the NPS milepost, which is the cross-check. NOT an NPS-published coordinate. Nearest town: Utica ~10.4 mi. 'Nearest town' is STRAIGHT-LINE distance to the nearest OpenStreetMap place=city/town/village and is NOT a driving distance. Ingest 2026-08-13. --- NIGHT SHIFT REVIEW 2026-08-18 (reviewer=nightshift-verified) --- https://www.nps.gov/natr/planyourvisit/camping.htm re-read 2026-08-18. It still reads verbatim "The three Parkway campgrounds are free, primitive, and available on a first come, first serve basis" and "They do not offer electricity, showers, or dump stations", and it still names "Jeff Busby at Milepost 193.1 and Rocky Springs at Milepost 54". "The Natchez Trace Parkway does not allow dispersed camping." THE FEE CAVEAT ABOVE IS NOW RESOLVED, in our favour. https://www.nps.gov/natr/planyourvisit/fees.htm read 2026-08-18 states verbatim: "The Natchez Trace Parkway is free and does not charge an entrance fee, or campground fees." That is a first-party NPS sentence about Parkway campground fees, not an inference from silence, and it is exactly the sentence the note above said it could not find. fee=0 is now sourced. STAY LIMIT -- the three-way contradiction flagged above is RESOLVED on the live page, which now says plainly "The maximum stay at our campgrounds is 14 days per campground per calendar year." 14 days is both the safe figure and the published one. MILEPOST -- camping.htm now prints Rocky Springs as "Milepost 54" while the site's own page prints 54.8; that is NPS rounding, not a different place. The site's own page https://www.nps.gov/places/rocky-springs-campground-milepost-54-8.htm was re-read 2026-08-18 and still says a 22-site campground at milepost 54.8, "first come first served basis, no reservations", pull-through and back-in sites, with amenities "Picnic Table, Restroom, Restroom - Accessible, Water - Drinking/Potable". That potable water is an NPS-listed developed tap, not a natural source. The coordinate is still an OpenStreetMap way centroid cross-checked on the milepost label, NOT an NPS-published coordinate; that limitation stands and is disclosed. DUPLICATE CHECK: every pending Mississippi row was compared BY COORDINATE (haversine, never by name) against all published and 'later' Mississippi camps. This row has no published camp within 1500 m and no other pending row within 120 m. VERDICT: HOLDS UP. Free, first-come-first-served NPS campground, and the fee is now confirmed by a first-party sentence rather than inferred.

US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.

On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.