"MACON, Ga. — Georgia has no national park, but with a deal finalized this week to purchase and protect an expansive tract of forest, swamp and sacred Native American tribal land, that could soon change.
Designating a national park adjacent to downtown Macon is a goal for Middle Georgia conservationists and Oklahoma’s Muscogee (Creek) Nation, whose citizens were forcibly removed from these ancestral lands in the early 1800s.
Previously under contract for industrial development, the 951-acre Ocmulgee Mounds Expansion Tract lies next to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. The purchase is part of a 2019 expansion of the park that resulted from the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. Signed by President Donald Trump, the legislation nearly quadrupled the park’s authorized boundary from 701 acres to more than 3,000. The area being studied for a national park holds more than 800 known archaeological sites, the majority of them unexplored. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation previously considered the newly acquired parcel, also known as the Ocmulgee Old Fields, one of the most historically significant unprotected acreages in North America."
Chris Dixon reports for the Washington Post February 12, 2022.
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