-The following program i a West Tennessee PBS special pre made possible through the gener financial support of viewers lik Please visit westtnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continu to make local programs like this Thank you.

-Did you know the largest group of middle Woodlands mounds in the entire countr is right here in Madison County?

Hello, I'm Don McCorry.

On this edition of Tennessee is the topic is the Pinson Mound St What exactly is it?

What is this historical importa and how you and your family can Let the conversation begin.

-That's so cool.

-Then that's when I said that-- -The problem with that idea is-- -Wow, that was amazing.

-Then I came up with the solutio -What was that about?

-Here's what I think about it.

-Now we're talking.

-West Tennessee PBS presents, Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

-Thanks for joining the discussi on Tennessee is Talking.

I'm Don McCorry.

The Pinson Mound State Park covers more than 1,200 acres and has 17 Native American mound The park also includes a museum.

Joining us to tell more about this unique local state park is Park Manager, Tim Poole.

Thanks for joining us, Manager P -Thank you so much.

-Welcome.

-Thank you -Let's talk a little bit about how this all began.

-Wow.

Well, 2,000 years ago, this was a viable and amazing center of trade.

We today are seeing the amazing remnants of what an incredible group of peo left behind for us to marvel at.

The trade was far-reaching 2,000 based on the thing that we have found and discovere Raw materials that come from as far north as Canada, as far south as the Gulf Coast, and as far, excuse me, west as the Rocky Mo and as far east as the Carolinas The trade 2,000 years ago was pretty phenomenal.

-We're talking food, staples.

-Raw materials.

-Raw materials.

-Yes, sir.

-Got it.

That seems like an incredibly important port for it to be located in this are -Indeed and amazing.

Today we get to share the 2000-year-old sacred site with our park visitors.

-Well, we thank you for that.

People have referred to the par as one of Tennessee's best-kept Would you agree with that statem -Absolutely.

Definitely.

We appreciate when we hear that.

-Visitors are welcome to come a throughout the course of the yea -Yes.

We have a lot of things that go on across the year, lots of programs and events.

In fact, our visitation for the site is usually right at 100,000 for For our events, our Archeofest event itself which is the third weekend in September each year, usually has about 13,00 that visit us across that weeken We do a lot of events and progr especially with school field tri both in the spring and in the fa To give you an idea of our numbers for that, last year we documented right at just under 4,000 students that came to Pinson Mounds.

We're definitely an educational -Do you get student from outside of West Tennessee?

-Occasionally, yes sir, we do.

Mostly it's students, elementary and middle schools in Occasionally, we'll have some as to the east as Nashville will co We have colleges and universitie that will also com and participate in different act that we have going.

-Of the 1,200 acre that are covered under the park, how many of them are available to the public?

-To the public, we have a series and we have a wonderful trail sy We have almost five miles of pa which are great for walking, for for coming ou and taking a nice leisure walk.

Then we have a little over three of traditional trails, which there we have a trail called the Nature Trail and we have a traditional trail called the Earthworks Trail.

Those are more traditional and give you the feeling of what you would expect to hike in Those are accessible and we encourage folks to come and enjoy those as part of the r -Are these guided tours or these individual can just walk at their own leisu -Oh, it's certainly walk at their own leisure.

We also do offer regular schedule programs as far as tours and different th Sometimes we'll do hikes to the We have a special mound hike that one of our rangers, Dedra Ekberg, has designed that's just fantastic.

It's something that can be self- or can benefit from having a ranger with you.

We have a whole process of where we have set up where folks can call and request programs for us, and we can set those up.

-When a family decide that they're going to visit you, what can they expect?

-A place to come and enjoy.

Beautiful.

Every season has its own different flavor to the site.

The backdrop is obviously a prehistoric indigenous people's sacred site and the natural resource of the area are just beautiful because we're nestled right on of the South Fork of the Forked We have several different region within the park of upland hardwo and different things that people can see all the way to our boardwalk, which is situated in a cypress s That's associated with an overlo of the Forked Deer.

It's a beautiful place to come a picnic and come spend a day wi -Are there camping facilities av -No, sir, there's not, but we usually refer folks to the nearest state park, which would be Chickasaw State P -We have a lot of teacher who watch Tennessee is Talking.

What does the park offe for educational information for -That is a wonderful question.

I'll try to find a short answer because I could go on and on.

For our partnerships with educat we are an educational center and we work and collaborat with the division of archeology.

We work with colleges and universities as well as middle schools and elementary schools.

I mentioned spring and fall fiel Those are the season where typically, we have a proce that we have set in place where teachers are able to cont and go through a reservation pro There's not a difficulty to be able to do this.

That way we can make sure that we can get them on our programming schedule to be able to provide a field trip opportunity.

Usually, the things that we do to meet curriculum requirements for our State of Tennessee for the education.

-You've got instructors or lecturers on site that share historical informatio about the park, maybe such as yourself.

-Yes, sir.

That's part of us being park rangers is we also do interpretive work.

We present and share the site.

One of our significant motto for Tennessee State Parks is preserve, protect, and share.

That's under that umbrella for s A lot of us get into being park because of the educational aspec of being able to share, to see a person discover somethi for the first time, and it just be very meaningful.

That can be a park visitor of an having a discover or making one of those aha momen -I'm fascinate with your position as a park ran the manager of the park.

Tell us a little bit of some about your duties that we may not know anything ab -Wow.

It's a fantastic career.

It's pretty much all I ever want I discovered that I could have many careers within one career f and that's being a park ranger or a park manager.

I wanted to be a teacher.

I wanted to be a carpenter.

I wanted to be all these differe and I could find going to all of these multitudes of things to be involved in and develop sk being a park ranger.

We were talking earlier, a lot of the draw was the educational aspect, being able to share history and and information.

Share about the wildlife, and the- rocks, and the trees, and the wildflowers and all these different things that makeup.

It's really to try to shorten do We always say in state parks that we wear many hats, and that's very true.

It's a very multifaceted career, and it's all built around the concept of service.

-In this part, do you occasionally make even new discoveries?

-Yes, sir, we do.

We have an ongoing relationship with a couple of universities that do field schools at Pinson There's one scheduled for this summer actually.

It all started years ago.

It started back in 201 with the University of the South and they brought som graduate students to Pinson Moun and we're doing som cooperative studies of the site.

That led to those students becoming tenured professors, and then they would bring their students back.

The relationship has grown.

It's just a beautiful thin because of the passion for the r a lot of new stuff happening at an old site.

They're continuing to do work and discover things.

COVID slowed that process down o but it picked back up.

This year, we're back to a place where we se the Colorado State University is to share about a six-week field at Pinson Mound.

They're very passionate about their research, and there's articles being written about the things that they're finding.

The research is still fresh and current and interesting.

That's just amazing to continue things being discovere and more pieces of the puzzle, if you will, at a site.

-Have you had any of your discoveries wind up in a Tennessee Museu for a period of time for display or shared with someone outside of the state park that people didn't go visit?

-That's a great question.

Not to my knowledge yet.

-One of the discoveries that I had was it is now or it is o the National Historic Register.

What does that designation mean -Having these wonderful designat of being a National Historic Lan and being on the list the Register for Historic Places are pretty significant.

It's a wonderful way to see the in a very respectful way of ackn that it's an important place.

It's something that we do every Our work at Pinson is we're pass and we're very respectful.

We realize that we have descendant communities that cherish the site.

We have wonderful relationship with the Chickasaw and the Choct We are always awar that our being there is an impac just simply being on an archeological site.

It's our desire to always be res and to realize that we need to our impacts are positive ones ea -There is a museum as wel as a gift shop on the property a Can you tell me a little bit abo what's in the museum?

-What a visitor can see in the m you come to Pinson Mounds and you want to see and lear a little bit more about the site We have exhibit and interpretive displays in the and we also have a wonderful fil that was made for us a few years by a filmmaker that has made many interpretive for the National Park Service and other sacred sites.

A film company called Camera One their narrator actually is a Te and so there was a neat connecti The interpretive film really answers questions if someone doesn't get a chance to talk with a ranger.

The place speaks very strongly.

I would always encourage people to come there.

The museum is a great place to see some of the things that chronicle archeology in Ten different sequences, going back about 14,000 year up through the European contact.

It's pretty phenomenal to see th The rock tells its own story.

In the very back of the museum, it's almost like a timeline, but the exhibits pretty much break down the different time sequences and the lifeways of the differen from the paleo people, to the ar to the woodland and the Mississi and then the historic.

It's somethin where people can see those thing and they can be amazed at the pr and the amazing work that was done to make stone too that were aerodynamic and so use -I don't know if you can answer but I'm just excited about the f that maybe some descendants of some of the Indigenous people may have come to the museum and their reaction when they se some of the things that you've d -We have occasionally visits from, particularly, the Chickasa The Chickasaw will come and they bring their elders, and it's always very satisfying to have the privilege of getting to speak with them and visit with them.

Recently this calendar year, we've receive some very positive feedback from and it lets us know that we're really doing our very best -You're honoring their tradition -Yes, to honor their culture and their tradition.

That's been somethin extremely meaningful this year.

-Great.

Pinson Mounds has several event throughout the course of the yea learning about bees, stargazing, tell us abou what your calendar looks like.

-Across the year we had planned multiple things.

I certainly want to be clear in saying this.

This is our 50th year anniversar of being a state park, a state archeological park.

It's just part of the long jour of the amazing 2,000 years befor that it was designed as a sacred With the 50th anniversary of the park being there, as part of the archeological sit one of the things that we decided to do was have celebrations of the 50th anniversary.

Across the year we've planned several different starting with the first-day hike going through into the summe with different star-gazing event hosting friends from Vanderbilt, coming down from the Dyer Observ and being able to share some of the night sky with powerful telescopes, to working through the summer wi we had planned, let's see, something I definitely want to c is the Jackson Symphony having a part of our signature 50th-anniversary events.

Then on to upcoming Archeofest.

-That is terrific.

We're looking forward to that.

That's going to be an exciting e What is your biggest event that The one in September?

-Yes, sir.

This will b our 42nd consecutive Archeofest, and so we're really excited to continue that tradition.

We are on of two oldest state park events, but we're not the oldest but we are one of two of them.

With that that's a fun thing to keep going It's a celebratio of Indigenous People's culture and a spotlight on archeology so folks can learn a little bit what modern archeology is and how they support and help to bring more informati We're really excited about Arche You'd think after 41 years, that we'd be slowing down with running out of steam, but we're still, every year's ne -Can we go to your websit to find out more information abo that are coming ou throughout the course of the yea -Yes, sir.

Our website and our Facebook page are two wonderful places to be a to reach out and talk out.

-What is that website address?

-It's actually a webpage off of tnstateparks.com, if they go through the larger pa there's a place that you look for Pinson Mounds, and you'll find us.

Then, of course, the Facebook pa Our friends group has a wonderfu as well that help.

They do a lot of things to suppo -Friends of Pinson Mounds?

-Yes, sir.

-What is it that you want every to remember most about this park I can clearly hea and see your passion about it, but what do you want others to g from your experience there on a daily basis?

-Definitely, having our respect of those that came before us and left the structures behind.

They didn't have a written langu that we know of, but the things that they left b showed that they were amazing pe I would just say it's definitely important to come to the park.

You can look at different things and research us, but the spirit of place just bei speaks volumes.

-The park is its own, if you wil -It is own.

-Just to have a found respect and appreciation of what the Woodland people did, how they were master architects and how they changed their lands and their lifeways were fascinat Just have a better understanding and respect of them.

-Great.

Thank you, Manager Poole.

-Thank you so much -Pleasure having you here today.

We've run out of time on this ed of Tennessee Is Talking.

We want to thank Pinson Mounds State Park Manager, Tim Poole, for joining us today.

If you missed any of this progra or want to rewatch it, it can be streamed on the PBS a along with all local Channel 11 Remember, you can keep the conversation going by following West Tennessee PBS on social media.

I'm Don McCorry.

Thank you for joining us and we will see you next time on Tennessee Is Talking.

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