TRAIL OF TEARS

Signs commemorating the historic Trail of Tears will be put up in the region in the near future.

The National Park Service is coordinating the project, which will mark the trail from Cleveland, Tenn., to Tahlequah, Okla. In this area, the trail winds through Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties.

The region has considerable Indian heritage. The Trail of Tears State Park just north of Cape Girardeau is one of only three interpretive programs on the trail. The park also contains the grave of Otahki Bushyhead Hildebrand, who died on the trek, and Green's Ferry site, where the Indians were ferried across the Mississippi River.

This project seems a fitting way to remember the 15,000 Cherokees who died on a government-ordered exodus from the Carolinas to Oklahoma reservations 150 years ago.