In the middle of Georgia lies a 3,300-acre piece of land that has been home to human settlement for over 12,000 years. Before colonization, four prehistoric cultures lived in today’s Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park.
With so much important history, it’s no surprise that FDR named the site a national monument in 1936. And now a local congressman is attempting to turn it into a national park.
What Is Ocmulgee Mounds?
This area, not far from Macon, Ga., was home to peoples even before the Ice Age. Multiple cultures, including the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian Indians, lived here. From 1300 to 1650, the Lamar Culture built the site’s namesake mounds as temples. The area was also the homeland of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation before the U.S. government expelled them beginning in the 1820s.
The area is hugely important in our understanding of America before European colonization. Archaeologists uncovered thousands of artifacts that helped them understand the timelines and cultures of people who once lived here.
From 1933 to 1936, members of FDR’s Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, and other New Deal organizations undertook a massive archaeological survey and dig. In 1936, the president declared it a national monument, putting it under the control of the National Park Service (NPS). In 2019, it became a national historic park after a bill passed Congress. Only 9% of the NPS’s 433 sites have this designation.
For the last 33 years, the park has held an annual Indigenous celebration, a multiday event with traditional cultural crafts, storytelling, live demonstrations, music, and dance.
The park’s visitation numbers have varied over the last few years, but from 2021 to 2025, it averaged around 143,000 visitors per year.
The Effort to Make It a National Park
National parks can only achieve that designation by an act of Congress. Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA) introduced a bill to do so for Ocmulgee Mounds into the House on June 24. Next, the bill will be considered in a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands on July 1.
There is a long history of representatives introducing bills to make their local areas national parks to boost economic development and tourism dollars, as well as past examples of turning national monuments and historic sites into national parks.
A prime example of both is a push from Missouri lawmakers to create Gateway Arch National Park in 2018. The area was once a national memorial and was designated a national park, despite having no natural resources or wildlife to protect.
A California congressman (unsuccessfully) spent years in the 1970s trying to get the Santa Monica Mountains declared a national park. In 2025, Arizona’s two senators, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, introduced a bill to make Chiricahua National Monument a national park. In 2026, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) introduced a bill to give the same elevated status to Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, despite objections from local groups.
Congress went on a bit of a re-designation spree in the late 2010s, creating four new national parks: Gateway Arch in Missouri (2018), White Sands in New Mexico (2019), Indiana Dunes in Indiana (2019), and New River Gorge in West Virginia (2020). Since then, there have been no new parks.
GearJunkie reached out to Austin Scott and the Choctaw Nation for comment, but did not receive responses by the time of publication.
