A Walk In The Park With Parker | Tombigbee State Park

May 29, 2018

LEE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Over the next months of the summer, we’ll be focusing on the different services these state parks have to offer for families who may not want to spend a whole lot of money to send their family for a nice vacation over the weekend.

Our first stop: Tombigbee State Park. Let’s take a look.”

“Tombigbee was built in the 1930’s by the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps,” said park manager, Jeff Rosamond.

Sitting 6 miles south of Tupelo, this state park has been providing an outdoor getaway to visitors for nearly 80 years.

“We’ve got roughly 11 miles of mountain bike trails. We get a lot of people out of Tupelo and the surrounding towns that come in and utilize that,” the park manager said.

Travelers who’d prefer to take-in nature at a slower pace, Tombigbee has just the thing.

“Tree trunk trails are for nature… nature trail walkers. We encourage people to come out and look at it,” Rosamond said. “It’s one of the original trails that was built probably in the 1930’s. Also, hey, we have a big disc golf course. Actually, we have two of them, and man we see a lot of different golfers that come out.”

For those wanting a more aquatic approach to the outdoors, the park surrounds Lake Lee.

“It’s a 100 acre lake,” Rosamond confirmed. “We offer fishing, and we do offer kayaking and canoeing. You have to bring your own, but we do allow that. Actually, the lake is an excellent spot for that because it’s a troll speed on the lake, so you don’t have a lot of big boats running by you.”

If you’d like to make a weekend out of your visit, the park has 20 campsites for RVs.

“18 of them is what we call full-service, so you have electric water and sewer hookups,” the park manager said.

Also 7 cabins for a more comfortable stay, and the age on some of these can take someone back.

They’re just as old as the park.

“The siding on the side of them was cut with a circular saw and not a bandsaw with what they do nowadays, so everything you can tell that they really just put a lot of time in them and a lot of hard work,” Rosamond said. “They really stood the test of time, so it kind of tells you the craftsmanship and how the guys worked, you know, back in the 1930’s.”

Others, however, have a more modern feel to them.

Granite countertops? A nice touch.

The rates for the stay are also nice.

“If you kind of compare that to our surrounding states, I mean, we’re still cheaper than anybody when it comes to our camping,” Rosamond said.

The park was named to the national registry of historic places in 1999, and because of that maintenance can be expensive because of certain guildelines.

Tombigbee has been fortunate to partner with local businesses to help with cost.

“Toyota has kind of helped us over the last three or four years, you know, with our partnership,” said Rosamond. “They’ve done a lot for this park, and this past year they’ve come in and helped with the upgrading of the group camp facilities.”

It’s also helped the park in building the park’s new primitive section, giving a genuine outdoor feeling with a place to hang your hammock.

Going back to group camping, park manager Rosamond said the park is a popular spot for youth groups, friends groups, and yes even wedding parties.

“We can accommodate up to 100 people, as far as lodging. We do meals. I encourage them to come out, to take a look at us, you know, and I believe you’ll be back,” he said.

That’ll do it for us here.

Be sure to tune in next week for another walk in the park.

You can find more information on Tombigbee and their rates here.

As always you can find the fascinating stories we found at each park, on our website, A Walk In The Park With Parker.