Why this park
Bledsoe Creek State Park covers 169 acres of hardwoods and shoreline near Gallatin, on the west side of the long cove Bledsoe Creek makes where it meets Old Hickory Lake. Its name honors the brothers Isaac and Anthony Bledsoe, the park's page says.
The park is small but full of wildlife: deer, wild turkeys, great blue herons and egrets, and a bird list of more than a hundred species. What makes the place worth drawing is the protected wetland at the water's edge, seen from the observation boardwalk: an egret in the shallows, a turkey at the tree line, and at dusk, the rangers say, a barred owl calling.
The story
People came here for the game long before the park. The Tennessee Encyclopedia says Native Americans hunted for centuries around the springs and salt lick at Castalian Springs, less than three miles northeast. Archaeologists at Middle Tennessee State University say a Mississippian town grew up beside the springs, a walled settlement of some forty acres with a dozen mounds.
Long hunters were working the Cumberland country by the mid-1760s, after deerskins and furs on trips that could last months or years. Native Americans saw them as trespassers and thieves, the encyclopedia says, and sometimes took their furs and gear. Isaac Bledsoe found the lick and the creek in 1772. An account in the Draper Manuscripts, quoted by the university's archaeologists, recalls Bledsoe describing buffalo so thick on the path by the creek that his horse could barely push through.
Settlement meant war. In 1775 Richard Henderson's private Treaty of Sycamore Shoals with Cherokee leaders ceded him northern Middle Tennessee. Dragging Canoe opposed it, and for close to twenty years the Chickamaugas, Cherokees joined by Creeks and others, fought the settlers. Isaac Bledsoe, a captain in William Christian's 1776 campaign against the Cherokees, moved his family into his fort near the lick about 1784. His brother Anthony was killed there in 1788, and on April 9, 1793, warriors shot Isaac while he worked a field nearby. The fighting cost lives on both sides, the encyclopedia says. In Sumner County it ended after September 1794, when territorial militia destroyed the Chickamauga towns of Nickajack and Running Water.
The park's address, on Zieglers Fort Road, recalls another station. The encyclopedia describes Jacob Zeigler's station as three or four cabins without a stockade. Edward Albright's 1909 history of Middle Tennessee dates its destruction to June 26, 1792 (the encyclopedia says 1791): attackers burned it, killed five, Zeigler among them, and carried off eighteen captives.
The lake came in the 1950s. The Army Corps of Engineers began Old Hickory Dam, about 25 miles above Nashville, in January 1952 and closed it in June 1954. The lake turned the lower end of Bledsoe Creek into a long cove, and the land on its west shore became a state park in 1973, on ground the state leases from the Corps.
The Bledsoe sites lie outside the park, at Castalian Springs, and others run them. The fort site is now Bledsoe's Fort Historical Park, a Sumner County park. The Tennessee Historical Commission has held Wynnewood, an 1828 log inn by the springs, since 1971. The state bought the core of the mound site in 2005; it is open only on guided tours.
When to go, and what to wear
Spring brings wildflowers and migrating warblers. At the nearest NOAA station with full records, near Bethpage and about six miles north, April averages a high near 69°F and a low near 43°F. May is the wettest month, at more than five and a half inches, so pack a rain shell. The Shoreline, Mayo Wix and Birdsong trails can close for flooding.
Summer is hot: July averages a high near 88°F and a low near 67°F, so walk early in a light, breathable tee and carry water. The CDC says ticks live in grassy, brushy and wooded places, and advises permethrin-treated clothing, an EPA-registered repellent and a full tick check afterward.
Fall is the driest season, and September the driest month. October averages a high near 71°F and a low near 44°F, good weather for the High Ridge and Shoreline loop the rangers suggest.
Winter brings ducks such as buffleheads and lesser scaup, and the park lists bald eagles on the Shoreline Trail. January averages a high near 45°F and a low near 25°F, so dress in layers, with a windproof jacket and a hat for the boardwalk and shore, and bring binoculars. In any season wear sturdy shoes: the High Ridge Trail has steep stairs, and the park's bridges turn slick when wet.
Know before you go
- The park warns campers that gray squirrels have chewed through propane lines and electric wires on tents and campers; some campers wrap exposed lines in aluminum foil.
- There's no fishing in the protected wetland along the Birdsong and Mayo Wix trails and part of the Shoreline. The boat ramps open only during park hours: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. from mid-March to mid-November, and to 5 p.m. the rest of the year.
- RV drivers should come in on Highway 25 by way of Airport Road or Highway 231, keeping off Brights Lane, Cairo Road and the Gallatin square. Cell service is spotty.
- Hours, fees and closures change, so check Bledsoe Creek State Park's page before you go.
Sources: Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Bledsoe Creek State Park" (Carroll Van West), "Isaac Bledsoe," "Anthony Bledsoe," "Frontier Stations" and "Wynnewood" (Walter T. Durham), "Sumner County" (Dee Gee Lester), "Early Exploration" (Michael Toomey) and "Chickamaugas" (Fred S. Rolater), Tennessee Historical Society; Middle Tennessee State University, Bledsoe's Lick Archaeological Project, "Bledsoe's Lick Archaeological Project Background"; Jay Guy Cisco, Historic Sumner County, Tennessee (1909), via the Internet Archive, and its record of the Bledsoe monument, via TNGenWeb; Edward Albright, Early History of Middle Tennessee (1909), via TNGenWeb; Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Bledsoe Creek State Park Strategic Management Plan 2023–2033 and "Castalian Springs Mounds State Archaeological Area"; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District, Old Hickory Lake "Project History" (2008), via the UNT Libraries web archive; Trish Milburn, "Simple Pleasures," The Tennessee Magazine (2021); Gallatin Area Chamber of Commerce, "50th Anniversary Celebration on Earth Day" (2023); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Preventing Tick Bites"; NOAA, U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020, Bethpage 1 S station; Wikipedia; Bledsoe Creek State Park, tnstateparks.com.
