French Camp: Louis Lefleur's Stand on the Trace

Around eighteen ten, a French-Canadian trader named Louis Lefleur set up a stand right here on the Natchez Trace, a roadside inn and trading post where travelers could eat, sleep, and buy supplies. People called it the Frenchman's Camp, which eventually became French Camp. Lefleur married a Choctaw woman, and their son Greenwood Leflore would rise to become a Choctaw chief and a Mississippi state senator.

Leflore County and the city of Greenwood are both named for him. By eighteen eighty-five, Presbyterian missionaries had established a school for girls here, later adding a school for boys. French Camp Academy is still operating today.