Ocmulgee Mounds National Park & Preserve: Strategic Planning for Georgia’s First National Park

Located in Macon, Georgia, the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park is a significant cultural landscape and focal point for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, with Indigenous history spanning thousands of years.

Following the removal of the Muscogee (Creek) people in the 1800s, the site has remained deeply meaningful to the Tribe. Today, the Ocmulgee National Park & Preserve Initiative, a coalition of Muscogee (Creek) citizens and Georgia partners, is working to establish Georgia’s first national park.

Strategic Planning Grounded in History and Community

Kimley-Horn is leading the strategic planning for the proposed 64th national park and preserve in the United States, an effort centered on honoring the ancestral lands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and shaping a shared regional vision. Notably, the project is led by Leah Campbell, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and Zac Kannan, a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, bringing a deeply personal and meaningful connection to the work.

More than a land conservation effort, the plan looks ahead to how the park and preserve can serve communities socially, culturally, economically, and ecologically. In collaboration with federal, state, regional, and Tribal partners, our team is working through six planning phases that focus on multidisciplinary aspects of this effort:

1. 1. Cultural resources, education, and interpretation
   2. Conservation and land protection
   3. Land use and development
   4. Transportation and infrastructure
   5. Economic impact analysis
   6. Interdepartmental coordination

Kimley-Horn’s role spans facilitation of interagency coordination, technical analysis, land use and infrastructure planning, and development of a comprehensive, implementation-ready strategic framework. The team also led a robust public engagement process across multiple counties and states—including open houses, advisory committees, and stakeholder coordination—to ensure that community voices directly informed the plan. PublicCoordinate, Kimley-Horn’s engagement solution, was also used to facilitate mapping exercises for community members between larger public input phases.

Leveraging Community-Driven Insights for a Better Future

Completed in spring of 2026, the resulting strategy balances the protection of culturally significant lands with economic opportunity, ecological resilience, and expanded public access. It builds off a proposed framework for long-term co-management between the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the National Park Service, bringing together partners separated by more than 1,000 miles around a shared vision for Georgia’s first national park.

At its core, the plan centers the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s deep ancestral ties to the land while fostering a more inclusive and enduring partnership between the Nation and Middle Georgia for generations to come.