THREE WAY, Tenn. — Middle Fork Bottoms State Park is located in Three Way in Madison County. It’s been a long time coming for this area to become a state park. Now the moment has arrived, and on Monday morning, many people gathered to celebrate.

“Governor Lee’s main focus this term has been to help people fall in love with Tennessee,” said Greer Tidwell, deputy commissioner of conservation at TDEC. “To enable people to get out into nature and develop their ability to preserve Tennessee’s beauty. As a state park, it goes from being a place where people are welcome to being a place where you are welcome but also actively invited.”

This area is prone to flooding. In fact, one of the main reasons this state park is so important is to make sure that when floods occur, the right areas are inundated.

“We have been managing these lands for many, many years,” Tidwell said. “Governor Lee and other environmentalists have said that we need to look at how this land can help in its natural way to minimize the risk of flooding in the future.”

All day long, people have been saying that the park will continue to grow and become even more beautiful than it already is. Tidwell explains it in more detail.

“What we have here at the state park is like a garden. You can’t finish a garden. You just develop it, take care of it, maintain it, let it bloom and keep getting fuller. So that’s the vision here,” Tidwell said.

The park features 250,000 recently planted trees, over 200 acres of restored wetland and a three-kilometer-long restored stream.

The park also features four fishing areas, paddleboat access to the Middle Fork Forked Deer River, and five miles of hiking trails.

It is located at 111 Sanders Bluff Road in Three Way.

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