Big Cypress Tree State Park

The park is named for a tree that is no longer there, and it is still worth the short drive. The Big Cypress was once the largest and oldest bald cypress in the United States: about 175 feet tall, forty feet around at the base, and estimated to be 1,350 years old. A thunderstorm lightning bolt destroyed it in 1976. If the estimate was close, the tree was already growing in the seventh century, long before any town in this part of Tennessee existed.

What remains is 330 acres of bottomland hardwood forest in the floodplain of the Middle Fork of the Obion River, between Sharon and Greenfield in Weakley County. The forest shelters beavers and fox squirrels, a boardwalk and a river trail cross it, and the park is for day use only. High water can close the river trail and boardwalk, which is a reminder that this is river floodplain. The visitor center has accessible parking and restrooms.

This was also Chickasaw (Chikasha) hunting country. West Tennessee belonged to the Chickasaw until the 1818 Jackson Purchase, and some Chickasaw hunters kept crossing into present-day Weakley County for game after the treaty, to trade in Memphis.