Trail of Tears National Historic Trail

National Trails System - National Park Service

Current Projects

National Register of Historic Places Nominations

The National Park Service, in partnership with a wide variety of state agencies, universities, and other entities, has begun an initiative to nominate properties associated with the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail to the National Register of Historic Places. The nomination process involves identifying properties of high integrity with a significant association to the Trail of Tears. Associated properties eligible for the National Register help trail enthusiasts to positively identify the Trail of Tears on the ground and promote the significance of the trail in our communities, and it may offer additional protection features to the sites.

A key feature of the initiative is the completion of the National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form for the Cherokee Trail of Tears, which was entered onto the National Register on June 26, 2003. The Multiple Property Form provides historic contexts and significances for properties. And, it also identifies property types, including descriptions, resource significance statements, and nomination requirements for properties such as fort sites and emigration depots, roadbeds, ferry crossings and landings, campsites, structures, gravesites, and disbandment sites. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program has taken a lead role in identifying and nominating eligible properties. Among those already entered onto the National Register are the Military Road through Village Creek State Park and Blackfish Lake Ferry Site (both in St. Francis County).

If you know of a property or site on the Trail of Tears that may be eligible for the National Register, please consider participating in this initiative. Download the Multiple Property Form (PDF file requiring free Adobe Reader ®) for completion.

A selection of National Register of Historic Places nominations for sites on the Trail of Tears are available here.

Visit the National Register of Historic Places web site for more information. Or, contact Aaron Mahr in the National Trails System-Santa Fe, at 505-988-6736.

Research Projects

Many people, institutions, and agencies are researching the history of the Trail of Tears. Through the Challenge Cost Share Program, the National Park Service forms partnerships with many different groups to encourage research activities along the trail, and achieve our collective goals to protect, preserve, and commemorate the history, and properties associated with, the Trail of Tears. A broad range of research topics are eligible for cost share funding. They could include documenting a structure’s history and architectural fabric and design in anticipation of stabilization or preservation actions; studies of trail sites that may be eligible for certification or nomination to the National Register of Historic Places; general research into the trail’s history in a particular area that will contribute to an interpretive program there; and many others.

Examples of completed or ongoing research projects include:

North Little Rock

The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole all passed through North Little Rock during the Indian Removal period, making the city one of the most important sites on the Trail of Tears. The city’s Riverside Park is a certified site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. In discussions between the City of North Little Rock, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, other associated groups, and the National Park Service, we identified the need to document the story and provide historic context as the first step towards developing a comprehensive plan for interpretation, preservation, and commemoration of Indian Removal there.

In 2003, through a cost share agreement between the National Park Service and the University of Arkansas Little Rock, Prof. Dan Littlefield and a team of researchers developed a historic context report on Indian Removal through North Little Rock. This report will provide interpreters and park developers with the historical background necessary to develop a noteworthy Trail of Tears experience in downtown North Little Rock and preserve extant sites.

The North Little Rock Site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail: Historic Contexts Report, 2003

Georgia Forts

The removal experience in Georgia, where militia troops engaged in a rapid and often brutal round up of Cherokee in the Spring of 1838, endures as the most notorious event on the Trail of Tears. But the sites where most of the military associated activity occurred are vaguely known, and the factual history of the round up has been clouded by the bitter legacy of the event.

In 2005, through a cost share agreement between the National Park Service and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources/Historic Preservation Division, principal investigator Dr. Sarah Hill, with management guidance from Georgia State Archeologist Dr. Dave Crass and Christine Neal, developed a report that accounted for all the secondary and primary sources known on the Georgia Forts. The report, presented here in draft form, provides documentation that will guide future investigations into specific fort sites, and enable the National Park Service to identify the potential for certification of these significant sites associated with the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.

DRAFT Cherokee Removal: Forts along the Georgia Trail of Tears, 2005

Interpretive Plan Completed

Working together, the Trail of Tears Association, National Park Service, and other partners completed an Interpretive Plan (PDF file requiring free Adobe Reader®) for the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail in June 2004. Completed over the course of a year, the plan contains fundamental information concerning the trail's purpose, significance, interpretive themes, and goals for the coming years. Through a voting system, trail partners decided that developing and placing interpretive signing along the trail was the highest priority.

The Hermitage
Nashville, Tennessee