Burgess Falls State Park

It has been awhile since I’ve been on the trail so today I decided to head off to Burgess Falls State Park.

Here’s a little history on the area (taken from Wikipedia):

Burgess Falls is named after Tom Burgess, a Revolutionary War veteran who settled along this section of the Falling Water River in the 1790s. The Burgess family used the river’s rapids to power a grist mill and eventually a saw mill which supplied early settlers with corn meal and lumber.

In 1924, the City of Cookeville built an earthen dam along the river a mile or so upstream from Burgess Falls. After a flood destroyed the dam in 1928, the city replaced it with a concrete dam that provided the area with electricity until the arrival of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1944. Due in large part to calls from Cookevillians to protect the area, Burgess Falls State Park was established in 1971. Part of a pipeline bridge still spans the river in the vicinity of Little Falls. The pipeline originally crossed the river into a tunnel on the north walls of the gorge and emerged to cross the river again near Middle Falls en route to a powerhouse.

 

 

Upper Falls

 

Middle Falls

 

Lower Falls

Here’s a short video!

 

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