Photograph by Stephanie Eley
Tracie Revis starts her tours at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park by showing visitors how to walk. It’s not step-by-step instruction. Rather, she guides: Look at the creek that runs between Muscogee mounds and the medicinal herbs growing on its banks. See how the water feeds into clay ponds, from which the Muscogee people made bricks. Observe the door of a Muscogee burial mound built 1,000 years ago, rising nine stories out of the ground, and then look at the sun. The mound is built east to west, with the door facing where the sun rises, to symbolize the cycle of life.
“What I’m trying to do is orient visitors and show them that this is an intentional place of a living, active culture,” she says. “So let’s walk in the park but also remember those who walked before and that this is hallowed ground for a people.”
Revis isn’t a member of park staff, but the chief operating officer and director of advocacy for the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative. A citizen of the Yuchi and Muscogee tribes, she moved to Macon in 2022 from the Muscogee Creek Nation within Oklahoma, where she was the tribe’s chief of staff, to head the effort to make the Ocmulgee Mounds a U.S. national park. (Its current designation as a national historical park preserves only the historical sites themselves; national park status would also preserve the natural landscape surrounding them and create a larger recreational area.)
In the past four years, Revis’s role has centered around reconnecting the Ocmulgee Mounds with the Muscogee Creek Nation, whose people lived for centuries along the Ocmulgee River before being forcibly removed in the 1830s. She works closely with federal park staff on events, leads tours, and helps to bring Muscogee Creek culture back to Macon, which now features Muscogee street signs and art displays.
After years of lobbying Congress, her efforts to protect the site at the federal level are paying off: A bill to preserve the land as a national park is under committee in the House. “If it passes,” Revis says, “visitation would go from 200,000 annually to 1.3 million.”
In its current state, Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park reaches across more than 3,000 acres, with hiking trails and wildlife refuge alongside its Indigenous heritage sites. The eight towering mounds—some with bases spreading two acres wide—date back to 800 to 1100 CE, built by a Mississippian culture from which the Muscogee and Creek people descended. The mounds served as burial grounds as well as places for ceremonies, trade, and community living.
Even after centuries of erosion, the tallest structure, the Great Temple Mound, is nine stories tall, a height that allowed tribal leaders to oversee the community. Standing at the top of the Great Temple Mound, Revis likes to point out the direct line that connects it to the Earth Lodge, a former council chamber. “People think they have to go to Greece or Egypt to see symmetry like this from ancient civilization,” she says. “But symmetry is here, too.”
After the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, the Muscogee Creek people were expelled from Georgia and force-marched to Oklahoma in what became known as the Trail of Tears. Afterwards, the mounds were neglected, and several were damaged or destroyed by railroad construction and cotton plantation development. But in 1936, after an archaeological excavation funded by the Works Progress Administration revealed millions of Indigenous artifacts, the U.S. government protected 600 acres as a national monument. Congress expanded the boundaries in 2019 and made Ocmulgee Mounds a national historical park.
Revis has also worked to improve the park’s relationship to the Muscogee Creek people. Under her guidance, the park renamed the annual Ocmulgee Indian Celebration to the Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration and replaced stereotypical, inaccurate powwow performances with authentic Muscogee Creek traditions. Federal park staff have joined Revis on trips to the Muscogee Creek Nation in Oklahoma to experience its festivals and ceremonies.
Though the Ocmulgee Mounds are sacred to her nation, Revis ends her tours by telling visitors that the park is big enough to hold more than just the native story. The land has undergone many iterations, from its millennia frozen underwater in the Ice Age to its time as a slave plantation and a U.S. military base. And there is still room for more stories.
“I hope we all understand that the land is older than all of us,” she says. “And, God willing, it will survive all of us, too.”
Insider Tips
When to Go
Anytime the seasons are changing. In the spring, everything is coming alive, and Ocmulgee has a lush, green blanket draped over it. In the fall, the park is bright yellow with goldenrod everywhere.
Where to Eat
The park is adjacent to downtown, where you can eat at a variety of local restaurants. Revis’s favorites are either Ocmulgee Brewpub for a burger and beer or Piedmont Brewery and Kitchen for the wings and brisket.
Pro Tip
The visitor center has the only facilities, with a restroom, a water fountain, and light snacks. There are also eight miles of trails to hike, so bring comfortable shoes. Finally, Revis urges visitors to be culturally reverent. “These are still burial mounds,” she says. “It’s great to have fun, but there are some places where you should be respectful.”
EXPLORE NEARBY
Courtesy of Explore Georgia
Macon
“On Rock Candy Tours, you’ll see everything, from the dessert shop opened in honor of a beloved grandmother, Sweet Eleanor, to the “mini” Walk of Fame outside the historic Douglass Theatre—where a young Otis “Rockhouse” Redding once competed in a teenage talent show. Tours are available daily. We also offer three other music tours: the Rock & Soul Tour, African American Music Experience & Walking Tour, and Free Birds & Night Owls Tour. They all dive into Macon’s legendary sound, exploring the people and places that shaped careers and changed American music. Otis Redding, Little Richard, and the birth of Southern rock with the Allman Brothers Band are woven into every tour we host.” – Naomi Peterson, Group Tour Manager
This article appears in our March 2026 issue.
