Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park – Manchester, Tennessee

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Getting on the road hubby and I decided we wanted to be more active. We talked and decided hiking and seeing the State and National Parks is one way we wanted to do this. So looking at what parks were near us.

The Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park seems pretty cool, an old Native America site.

We headed down to the museum first to get a history of the area. The parking area is right on the river talk about beautiful views! (Hard to see around the trees)

The first plaque we came across shared how the river was used to power powder mills during the civil war!

The museum had a ton of great artifacts that they have found on the site. They had a great display of arrowheads.

They had some other great stuff but I loved seeing the fish hook, it’s not much different than what we use today!

They have engraved rattles which were neat to see too

They also have pictures of the dig they did to find the artifacts in the museum.

This is a dugout canoe similar to ones the Native Americans would have used. This one had actually been used on the Duck River and tested out.

Heading down the path the area on top of the museum is a great picnic area and look out spot over the Duck River.

Entering the path The National Register of Historic Places plaque is there, It was good to explain tot eh kids what it was.

The start of the path there is sign number 1. The yellow bath is the 1 ¼ mile hike we did.

Sign 2 was at the base of the  grounds

The top there is huge open field. The flowers growing were very vibrant and colorful too!

From here we missed a few signs because the tail was to narrow and close to the cliff to walk with our young kids so we walked the park ranger’s truck trail around that area. Sign 8 was the next one we found.

Sign 9 pointed out some waterfalls.

The waterfalls were hard to see, while it was fall the leaves hadn’t really started falling yet.

Sign 10 shared the uses of water in different cultures.

The path here was beautiful and tree covered!

Now does that look great? Can you tell we walked it backwards because I let hubby lead the way?! LOL!

All in all I think it would be a good walk for older kids but I think we missed so much not being able to walk on the cliff.

Of course on the way out we wanted to check out the info for the RV and camping sites. We had to cross this beautiful bridge to do so.

We weren’t allowed back in to the RV sites and there wasn’t anyone on duty for info. What we did find out is there are 51 campsites with electric and water hookups, no sewer but there is a dump station. There Is also a nature trail around the camp area.

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