The Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative (ONPPI) proudly announces that the Georgia Department of Transportation (Georgia DOT) has officially transferred 136.55 acres of land to the National Park Service. The land donation was made possible through the 2019 John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act (Public Law 116-9), which authorized the expansion of Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park (Park) and granted the Park’s authority to accept the donation.

“We at the Georgia Department of Transportation are pleased to make this sizable donation of land, which will have a profound and meaningful impact,” said Georgia DOT Commissioner Russell R. McMurry. “This acreage is rich with cultural significance and history, and we are proud to contribute to the expansion of the Park.”

The newly donated acreage lies within the Ocmulgee River corridor and represents land historically occupied and stewarded by the Muscogee (Creek) people before their forced dispossession ahead of the Trail of Tears. The property, acquired by Georgia DOT in 1998 for wetland mitigation related to the Fall Line Freeway in Twiggs County, has remained undeveloped. Its transfer to the National Park Service helps further the preservation of sacred and historically significant landscapes.

“This land holds profound cultural and historical meaning for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation,” said Principal Chief David Hill. “Each step in reclaiming and protecting this sacred ground is a step toward healing and honoring our ancestors. We are grateful to the State of Georgia and to the many partners who are helping to restore and protect the original footprint of Ocmulgee.”

While this donation is not formally part of ongoing bipartisan congressional efforts to create a national park and preserve, it represents a meaningful contribution to the long-term protection of the Ocmulgee River corridor and the ancestral lands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The donation between Georgia DOT and the Park complements the larger vision of regional conservation and intergovernmental cooperation that seeks to further strengthen the community’s decades-long civic work to realize a more conserved Ocmulgee Corridor as a means to economic development, and is the basis behind the broader effort to conserve one of Georgia’s most significant cultural and ecological landscapes and create Georgia’s first national park and preserve.

“This land donation is a perfect example of how local, state, and tribal collaboration can lead to meaningful conservation outcomes,” said Seth Clark, executive director of ONPPI and Mayor Pro Tempore of Macon. “We’re incredibly thankful to Georgia DOT for their generosity. The gift of this tract is major progress in middle Georgia’s long-term vision for the Ocmulgee Corridor; it shows that Georgians at every level are up to the task of keeping our end of the bargain and protecting this unique landscape for generations to come.”

The ONPPI is a non-tribal, tribal grassroots coalition of middle Georgians and Muscogee (Creek) citizens working to expand and redesignate the current Park and surrounding hunting and fishing lands into a national park and preserve — a move that would ensure further public and private stewardship of the Ocmulgee Corridor, bolster Georgia’s economy, and constitute a major expansion of hunting and fishing access in the region.