The Forks of the Road, at the intersection of what are now Liberty Road and D'Evereux Drive, grew into the second-largest slave market in the Deep South, trailing only New Orleans. City officials forced traders outside the town limits in 1832, and by the 1830s the firm of Franklin and Armfield was routing over a thousand enslaved people a year from its Alexandria, Virginia depot to this site to meet demand from cotton planters. The market operated until Union troops occupied Natchez in 1863; the site is now preserved as part of Natchez National Historical Park.