Ocmulgee Mounds, a site in central Georgia with 12,000 years of Indigenous history, may soon become the newest U.S. national park under a pending bill in Congress, though the redesignation may not include much change for the site itself beyond marketing and public perception. The 3,000 acre park protects land and features important to the Mississippian culture, which built the ceremonial and burial mounds there starting roughly 3,000 years ago, and the Muscogee Creek Nation for which the site serves as an ancestral homeland. The site includes seven enormous earth mounds, with the largest standing 55 feet tall and covering about 2 acres, plus a museum containing millions of cultural artifacts including pottery, stone tools, jewelry, and bells. The National Park Service has managed the site since the 1930s, first as a national monument and since 2019 as a national historical park, with no legal or practical differences in protection between these redesignations though branding and marketing may change.
The redesignation effort has two primary aspects including declaring the area a national park and adding additional land designated as a national preserve, which matters because public hunting including traditional Indigenous hunting is allowed in national preserves but not in national parks. The changes are supported by members of both political parties in both houses of Congress and have not triggered opposition from local communities who in other places have objected due to fear of increased tourism or desire to preserve long-standing land uses. Geographer Seth Kannarr who studies parks and the naming of places notes that when a National Park Service unit is redesignated as a national park, it typically does not change the funding available to run the site, especially at a time when National Park Service funding and personnel are being cut. The only real changes would be in marketing through signs, brochures, and gift shop merchandise, but these changes would have an important effect since the tagline of new national park markets well and is believed to help attract more visitors to the site while preserving its 12,000 year legacy.
