Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park approaches official status as Georgia’s first National Park, 64th in the U.S.

Georgia is one of 20 U.S. states without a National Park, but that may soon change.

The state is on the verge of getting its very own National Park through the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, located in Macon, Ga., which looks to become a National Park pending final approval from Congress.

Georgia has several sites managed by the National Park Service (NPS), such as MLK Jr. National Historical Park and Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, but none with the specific “National Park” designation from Congress. The NPS System manages over 430 units — or parks — nationwide under a number of park designations, but only 63 have the official designation of “National Park”, which are tend to be well-known sites like Yellowstone National Park or the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Ocmulgee Mounds Park and Preserve Establishment Act passed through the U.S. Senate in late Nov. of this year — a huge win for advocates of the establishment of the National Park.

The Ocmulgee Mounds Act was unanimously reported out of committee. The act is now in the hands of Congress — the same branch that is currently going back and forth on passing funding that will prevent a government shutdown.

Due to the ongoing negotiations, it is unclear if the act will pass, alone or part of a larger bill, before Friday at midnight — the deadline to prevent a government shutdown.

That isn’t a cause for concern for Seth Clark, executive director of The Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative (ONPPI) and mayor pro tempore of Macon-Bibb County, though.

“We expect Congress and will be strongly advocating for them to swiftly take it up as part of budget reconciliation in the first of the coming year,” Clark said.

A little more waiting is nothing in the grand scheme of this National Park being established; if passed, the act will effectively be the realization of over 90 years of advocacy.

“The first piece of legislation was proposed in Congress in 1934 by Rep. Carl Vinson, and over the course of the 20th century, Middle Georgia [has] expanded its public access to conserve public hunting and fishing lands, and put invaluable cultural resources that were built by the ancestors of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation into conservation and protection,” Clark said. “We’ve been cobbling land together for a century to make a continuous footprint along the floodplain of the Ocmulgee River. So it’s been almost a century in the making.”

The Ocmulgee Mounts contain over 17,000 continuous years of historical artifacts, especially from the native cultures that called the lands their home. Its significance cannot be overstated, especially as the Muscogee Nation is based in Oklahoma these days after being forcibly pushed out of their ancestral lands throughout the 19th century.

ONPPI is the only tribally and non-tribally led conservation organization in the state of Georgia, said Clark — but credits this effort nearing its goal by all the partnerships involved, especially the support of the Muscogee Nation who is being considered for an increased management role of the future park and adding that he doesn’t think it can be properly stewarded without them.

He also credits U.S. representatives Austin Scott and Sanford Bishop — a Republican and Democrat, respectively, as two “bright spots” in politics who have been fighting for this issue for decades. 

Moreover, he said that the Georgia business community, like the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Macon Chamber of Commerce, realized the opportunity for responsible, conservation-based tourism, which has aided the progress in recent years.

“It’ll be fundamental to the economic viability of Middle Georgia,” Clark said.

While the negotiations toward a continuing resolution that will temporarily fund the government are at the moment uncertain, the act is expected to advance independently or as part of a future legislative package. Further, it is important to recognize that the job isn’t finished with the passage of the act.

Getting the act passed — which seems likely given its bipartisan support, though exactly when is uncertain — is the easy part, Clark said. The hard part comes afterward when they have to put nearly a century’s worth of advocacy into action in building out the nation’s newest National Park.

If the bill passes, the first step will be creating a pocket committee as required by federal law, which will rewrite the management plan for the new National Park — including roles for various stakeholders and managers of the transition process towards a National Park. This committee will have a year to essentially craft the direction of the park and its constituents. 

The other big step forward will be managing a million-dollar grant Ocmulgee Mounds received from the nonprofit Knight Foundation, with the purpose of creating a multi-year strategic plan alongside entities like the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, with the goal of transforming the surrounding region to be a “proper gateway community” for the new National Park.

Clark said they’re aiming to have that document made possible by the grant ready by this time next year, when, after review and approval, they can march forward executing the plan.

Despite the mountain of work that may lie ahead, the excitement for the intergenerational effort to finally come to pass is contagious.

Already, some street signs around Macon will be coming down and put back up in both English and Muskogean — the native language of the indigenous Muscogee peoples to this land — in honor of their ancestral land upon which Macon was built.

Macon is also planning to develop a bicentennial park to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the city’s charter, which will have components honoring the city’s connection to the sacred lands in which it is embedded. Additionally, the new plan will also focus on ways to unite Macon’s downtown with Ocmulgee in a comprehensive manner.

In short, even the preparation of the official National Park status has already begun changing Middle Georgia. And just as these lands are reshaping Middle Georgia’s legacy, Clark hopes that Middle Georgia can reshape its legacy with these lands.

“The legacy of this park is that it brings these communities together and heals land while taking care of itself, and offers economic viability to a region that was decimated in the 80s and 90s when textile companies closed down,” Clark said. “We can be [equally] as intentional in healing this land as the people who ripped it apart and have just as big of an impact — and that’s what Middle Georgia’s legacy is going to be on this.”

EDIT: Added a paragraph clarifying the difference between a National Park (official designation) and other NPS-managed sites in Georgia.