Red Clay State Historic Park to mark 40th anniversary on Oct. 5

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Jamie Pheasant performs a hoop dance during the 2017 Cherokee Cultural Celebration at Red Clay State Historic Park on Sunday, Aug. 6, in Cleveland, Tenn.

Red Clay State Historic Park will celebrate its 40th anniversary in October, marking the official opening of the park that preserves the Bradley County, Tennessee, site of the last seat of Cherokee government before Native Americans were marched west on the Trail of Tears.

On Oct. 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., state officials will mark the park's anniversary with a history lecture, demonstrations, living history displays, park tours and, of course, cake, according to park manager Erin Medley, who is also the treasurer of the Tennessee Trail of Tears Association.

The history of the park's land in the decades after the Cherokee Removal has been cloudy, Medley said, but those years will be the subject of a lecture planned for the anniversary party.

"What we're doing on the anniversary day is [a lecture from] Danielle Shelton - she is a Ph.D. candidate from [Middle Tennessee State University], and she for the last year-and-a-half has been doing research on the history of Red Clay after the Cherokee left," Medley said.

"She's been looking at the land deeds, the allotments and old military records, any records she can find talking about this land and who was in possession of it," Medley said. "It changed hands many, many times but what she's going to be doing is talking about what happened to it after they left and how it became a park today."

Shelton also will describe what the historic landscape looked like.

"There actually used to be like 91 buildings here, and so these are things that we didn't know that she has been researching and found," Medley said. "This is a lot of information that hasn't really be compiled before so we're super excited."

Along with Shelton's history lecture, former Cleveland Mayor Tom Rowland - one of the members of the Cherokee Red Clay Association formed to create the park - will speak on the park's formation, as well, officials said.

For Tennessee Trail of Tears Association President Debbie Moore, the site's historic clear, cold spring is a fond childhood memory, and the site has an important place in history.

"As a child, I went past the historic spring to visit my grandparents that lived just across the state line in Georgia," Moore said. "I spent many hours wading in the creek running off of the spring. It is a spiritual place.

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter / Fred Bradley tells a story during the 2017 Cherokee Cultural Celebration at Red Clay State Historic Park on Sunday, Aug. 6, in Cleveland, Tenn.

"I am so glad that the historic spring and land that surrounds it was saved for future generations," she said. "The property is used daily to teach the public about the Cherokee Removal."

Historical records show 11 general councils were held between 1832 and 1837 at Red Clay. It's where the Cherokee learned they had lost their homeland forever.

The Trail of Tears began over the next two years.

The 263-acre historic park was opened to the public on Sept. 28, 1979, but efforts to preserve it began in the 1960s, Medley said Tuesday.

"The state of Tennessee purchased the land from Col. James Corn," Medley said.

Corn was a retired lawyer, local and state politician and Bradley County historian who became interested in the Cherokee when he happened upon a stack of old papers in a used bookstore, according to Shelton's report, Red Clay Historic State Park, Cultural Landscape Inventory & Assessment, prepared by the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation.

The papers Corn found were documents from the U.S. Senate pertaining to the Cherokee. This intrigued Corn and set him on a course that would define the latter part of his life, the report states.

Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Foster Chief Bill John Baker hands out a keepsake to council members during the Cherokee Tri-Council meeting Friday, August 28, 2015 Red Clay State Historic Park.

Corn published "Red Clay and Rattlesnake Springs: A History of the Cherokee Indians of Bradley County, Tennessee," and nominated the Red Clay Council Grounds to the National Register of Historic Places. It was named to the register in 1974.

After the 1979 opening, Red Clay State Historic Park in 1984 hosted the first Joint Council of the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, the report states. The 1984 event was commemorated by a return of the eternal flame to Red Clay.

On the 25th anniversary of that historic reunion in 2009, the two tribes met for another Joint Council at Red Clay.

And in August 2017, on the 175th anniversary of their removal, Red Clay for the first time ever hosted the first Tri-Council of the Cherokee, comprised of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes: the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, and the United Keetoowah Band.

The park hosts a number of art, history, educational and cultural events throughout the year.

Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton or at www.facebook.com/benbenton1.