A donation has added 250 acres to Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Georgia/NPS file

A donation of land has pushed the total acreage of Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Georgia to near 2,000 acres. The 250-acre contribution from Macon-Bibb County comes roughly seven months after a land purchase added 906 acres to the park.

This acquisition pushes the park's size to 1,857 acres.

“Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park is a memorial to more than 12,000 years of continuous human habitation by multiple Indigenous cultures and peoples,” said Carla Beasley, the park's superintendent. “These land donations from Macon-Bibb County contribute to that memorial and enhance the park’s ability to share and interpret the significance of those cultures to American history.”

The newly acquired area contains evidence of one of the longest periods of human habitation in a relatively small area. The 250 acres is situated within the Ocmulgee Old Fields, also known as the Macon Reserve, a three-by-five-mile site revered as a sacred place to Muskogean people. The Ocmulgee Old Fields-Macon Reserve is comprised of lands specifically retained by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation from 1805 until the 1826 Treaty of Washington and other treaties that culminated in removing Muskogean people from their ancestral home to present-day Oklahoma. Reserving this land from major development provides opportunities to tell a more complete story of American history. The triumphs and tragedies of those who called this area home for thousands of years continue to shape our lives today and define our collective heritage.

“This is one of the most important efforts for our community and our region, from preserving history to increasing recreation opportunities and tourism,” said Macon-Bibb County Mayor Lester M. Miller. “I’m grateful for the team that has been working together so diligently at all levels of government and with all the partners to keep this moving forward.”

Additional support from the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative and National Park Foundation helped facilitate the land transfer that was announced this week.

“The civic support this project has in our community is astounding. Middle Georgia’s commitment to the cultural and ecological preservation of these sacred lands are emblematic of who we are and want to be as a region,” said Seth Clark, executive director of the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative. “This is truly a community effort and its impact will be generational.”The donated lands lie to the southeast of the main portion of the park. The newly acquired land will initially be closed to the public as the NPS develops a management plan to identify effective ways to preserve the integrity and interpret the site while also providing access to it. The NPS will invite public involvement in planning for the site."

The park is located on the east bank of the Ocmulgee River, and the city of Macon developed around the site after the United States built Fort Benjamin Hawkins nearby in 1806 to support trading with Native Americans. The Dingell Act passed in 2019 expanded the boundary by 2,100 acres to encompass the area that was defined in the park's original 1934 bill. 

The park is the site of the largest archaeological excavation in American history, producing more than two million artifacts, in the 1930s. The park’s striking mounds were created by highly skilled Indigenous engineers and today constitute one of America’s most important cultural landscapes. Seven of the mounds can be found at the park, including the 55-foot-high Great Temple Mound, located on a high bluff overlooking the floodplain of the Ocmulgee River. The Muskogean people who built these mounds spoke unique dialects reflecting lingual divergence from other tribes more than 3,000 years ago, making Muskogean — which is still spoken today — the only truly native southeastern language.