Casey Choung/Macon Melody
The following article was originally published on Oct. 3 in the Macon Melody, part of The Georgia Trust for Local News.
Although the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park is closed due to an ongoing federal government shutdown, planners are continuing efforts to ensure all voices are heard as they create a strategic plan to handle the potential expansion of the historic park into a national park and preserve.
Officials from the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative and consultants with Atlanta-based design firm Kimley-Horn displayed maps and infographics at the Rosa Jackson Recreation Center Wednesday afternoon. They also answered questions about what’s being done to prepare the region for the park.
Tracie Revis, director of advocacy for the initiative, said after hearing feedback earlier in the year, planners are presenting their findings to see if there’s anything they missed.
Initiative staff members and consultants are focusing on zoning issues along with cultural, recreation and transportation implications for the region surrounding the 3,000-acre park.
“The goal is that everyone has this, so we are all looking at the same plan,” Revis said. “While it will be housed … in Bibb County, all of the other surrounding counties will actually be receiving benefits from the impact of this.”
Revis didn’t comment on the park’s current closure, which started Oct. 1 after partisan disagreements led to Congress failing to pass appropriations legislation for the 2026 fiscal year. The initiative is a nonprofit organization. Its staff members aren’t affiliated with the U.S. National Park Service.
In 2024, members of Georgia’s U.S. congressional delegation introduced legislation that would expand Ocmulgee Mounds and create the nation’s newest national park, the first created in more than five years. The bill would drop “historic” from the current park’s name while later granting thousands of acres of nearby land national preserve status. That land would be available for recreational activities and hunting.
The legislation didn’t advance that year, but lawmakers reintroduced the bill in both the U.S. House and Senate this year. The House version is pending before that body’s Committee on Natural Resources, and the Senate version is at the doorstep of the upper chamber’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Revis said members of the Georgia federal delegation are “optimistic” that the legislation can move forward. If approved by both chambers of Congress and signed by President Donald Trump, the park would be the nation’s 64th such protected area.
About two dozen interested people attended the Rosa Jackson event to ask questions and get a look at the planning process.
Kahlil English lives near Clinton Street, where designers have mentioned creating another entrance to the park. That gateway would connect downtown Macon with East Macon.
He said that element of “connectivity” is what he hopes will invigorate and bring positive attention to the neighborhoods surrounding the park.
“The last thing you want to see is a good idea fizzle out,” he said. “This could be a catalyst.”
If expanded, the park could see a million visitors — including bucket-list go-getters — over the course of 15 years, Revis said.
While the original plan was for the park and preserve to extend as far down as Hawkinsville, land acquisition costs would be too high, said Matt Chalfa, the initiative’s director of strategic planning.
John Wilson came to the meeting to monitor the project’s progress and its southward expansion. Wilson said he was one of the original advocates for preserving what’s now known as the Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, which is south of the Ocmulgee Mounds.
He said a connection between the Ocmulgee Mounds and the wildlife refuge would protect another 9,000 acres while also connecting cultural sites and protecting black bear migratory patterns.
Wilson said the construction of a new data center in Twiggs County would impede the expansion of the preserve south along the river corridor. “The bigger it is, the more stable it is, the more animals can go back and forth,” he said.
Despite local outcry, Twiggs County commissioners in late September approved the data center’s construction. The multibillion-dollar project will rezone nearly 300 acres for the center, which developers said will bring 600 jobs to the county.
Revis, formerly a Muscogee (Creek) Nation official, said the expansion process has been an “eye-opening experience” for connecting local groups with the nation.
The federally recognized Native American tribe has long been involved with the park’s expansion. The process has helped bring Macon’s Indigenous people back to their homeland, Revis said, and has offered them “reconciliation.”
Nation officials are exploring the addition of a cultural center to the park. In September, Principal Chief David Hill and other members of a tribal delegation toured the former home of East Macon’s “first citizen,” DeWitt McCrary. That structure, located near the park’s current back gate, could be renovated for such a purpose, Hill said.
“We’re looking at new opportunities for the nation to continue to be part of the economic growth of Macon,” Revis added.
Casey Choung is a general assignment reporter for the Macon Melody, covering topics ranging from city government to local business events. Choung’s work has also appeared on GBH News and the Milford Daily News. His work can be found here.
