There’s Another Roadblock For Georgia’s First National Park — Here’s Why The National Park Service Is Pushing Back Against The Ocmulgee Mounds Gaining National Park Status

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According to a new report by Macon’s The Telegraph, Georgia’s first national park site, the Ocmulgee Mounds, has hit a snag on the path to National Park status. Basically… the National Parks Service doesn’t want to make it a recognized national park. Keep scrolling to see why, and how Georgians are continuing the fight.

Wait… Georgia doesn’t have any National Parks?

Nope. National Historic Parks, sure, we’ve got those. (And you can check ’em out on the National Park Service’s website, here.) But no, Georgia does not have a single officially designated National Park. That was all set to change, when talks began about adding the Ocmulgee Mounds in Macon, GA as a registered national park. But this designation has hit a little snag in the plan. The National Park Service doesn’t want to.

Why doesn’t the National Park Service want to make the Ocmulgee Mounds into a national park?

Well, according to testimony in the Senate on Tuesday, Mike Caldwell, an associate director with the National Park Service explained that the NPS needs to focus on maintaining its current list of national parks… not taking on more. The department is worried about needing more resources before adding expansions.

The Telegraph includes, that according to the hearing,

Officials in the hearing highlighted staffing challenges, noting that park and historic site employees have decreased by roughly a third while visitor numbers remain near record levels.

For reference, the federal government manages about 640 million acres of land, and the Ocmulgee Mounds National Park and Preserve would only add roughly 7,000 acres to that total. That’s a whopping 0.000011% increase to the federal management.

So is that it? Are we giving up?

Of course not! Middle Georgians have been fighting to get this elevation of the Ocmulgee Mounds to National Park status for years and years… and this little bump in the road isn’t stopping that.

There are plenty of reasons to want the Ocmulgee Mounds to be recognized–not only would it be amazing for Georgia, but the mounds would also be the first ever National Park to be co-managed by a removed tribe. That is, the Muscogee Creek people, who were forcibly removed from their ancestral land in Georgia. Of course, this would be a massive historic moment.

The Ocmulgee Mounds are also one of Time’s 2025 100 world’s greatest places (& must-visit destinations). And we couldn’t agree more!