South_Cumberland_Recreation_Area
South Cumberland State Park
State park in Tennessee
South Cumberland State Park is a state park in the middle and southeast portions of Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau.
The park is one of Tennessee's newer state parks, established in 1978. It is a collection of nine discrete tracts scattered across Franklin, Marion, Grundy and Sequatchie counties, totaling approximately 30,899 acres (as of 2020).[1] Twelve trailheads provide hiking access to most sections of the park,[2] which protects a series of unique ecosystems on the escarpments and in the ravines of the Southern Cumberland Plateau. There are over a dozen large waterfalls in the park,[3] the tallest of which is Foster Falls, in Marion County. The Grundy Lakes unit includes industrial archaeological remains of the coal mines and coke production facilities of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, as well as a stockade prison it operated that provided convict labor for those facilities.[4]