This is the second of four columns this year that I am devoting to familiarizing group leaders with the incredible variety of America’s national park (NP) sites. This time we’ll cover the Southeast, which we have defined as east Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and all other states that are due east of these, as well as offshore areas in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Although this is probably the region that most travelers associate least with our National Park Service, this part of the country contains numerous park sites that cover a wide range of natural and historical subjects.
Only six of the country’s 59 named NPs are in the Southeast. Two of them are widely recognized: Great Smoky Mountains NP straddling the southern Appalachians in both Tennessee and North Carolina, the most highly visited of all 59, and Everglades NP in south Florida. Others in the Sunshine State nearby are Biscayne NP, largely an underwater park, and Dry Tortugas NP, home to the massive red-brick Fort Jefferson, about 70 miles out from Key West and easily reached by catamaran or seaplane.
More than two dozen battlefields and other military-related sites include old Spanish fortresses at San Juan National Historic Site (NHS) in Puerto Rico and Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (NM) in St. Augustine, and World War II-era Tuskegee Airmen NHS. Revolutionary War battles in the Carolinas are commemorated by Ninety Six NHS, a personal favorite; Kings Mountain and Guilford Courthouse National Military Parks (NMPs), and Cowpens and Moores Creek National Battlefields (NBs). Civil War battlegrounds are well represented across the South by such parks as Fort Sumter and Fort Pulaski NMs; Tupelo, Fort Donelson and Stones River NBs; Pea Ridge, Vicksburg, and Chickamauga and Chattanooga NMPs; and even the Confederacy’s notorious prisoner camp at Andersonville NHS.
The homes of famous Americans can be explored at units in South Carolina (Charles Pinckney NHS), North Carolina (Carl Sandburg NHS), Tennessee (Andrew Johnson NHS), Texas (Lyndon B. Johnson NHP) and Georgia (Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter NHSs). Important times in the nation’s history are observed at Wright Brothers National Memorial (NMEM); New Orleans Jazz, Cane River Creole and Natchez NHPs; and Little Rock Central High School NHS.
Florida boasts both Fort Caroline and De Soto NMEMs. Beautiful seashores along the Atlantic include Cape Hatteras National Seashore (NS) and Cape Lookout NS in North Carolina, Cumberland Island NS in Georgia and Canaveral NS in Florida. Along the Gulf Coast there’s Gulf Islands NS in both Florida and Mississippi, and Padre Island NS in Texas.
In addition to Biscayne NP, parks of primary interest to snorkelers and scuba divers include Virgin Islands Coral Reef NM and Buck Island Reef NM. Other water recreation enthusiasts can head for Buffalo National River in Arkansas; either Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area or Obed Wild and Scenic River, both in Tennessee; or Chickasaw NRA in Oklahoma.
Finally, two of the country’s finest scenic drives, as well as two equally splendid nearby long-distance trails, can be found in the Southeast. First, the famed Natchez Trace Parkway (PKWY) and National Scenic Trail (NST) stretches from Natchez, through Mississippi and northwest Alabama into southern Tennessee, ending just southwest of Nashville. Second, both the Blue Ridge PKWY and the Appalachian NST wind south from Virginia into North Carolina, and the trail also extends into northern Georgia.
