Burgess Falls State Park

The Falling Water River drops from about 900 feet on the Highland Rim to just over 600 at Center Hill Lake, and it does most of that in the last stretch before the lake. A short trail follows the river down past a low cascade, Little Falls and Middle Falls, then reaches the main fall, which plunges more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge with walls 100 to 200 feet high. Each drop is larger than the one before it.

The name comes from Tom Burgess, who received this land as a Revolutionary War grant. His family used the rapids to run a grist mill and later a sawmill. In 1924 the city of Cookeville built a dam upstream to make its own electricity. A flood destroyed it four years later, and the city rebuilt it in concrete. The plant stopped generating in 1944, but the dam still holds back the lake above the falls, and part of a pipeline bridge from the power scheme still crosses the river near Little Falls.

Cookeville residents pushed to protect the place. The city and the state agreed on shared management in 1950, and the state formally created the natural area in 1971. It is a day-use park with trails, a playground and picnic ground. The river is volatile, so the gates close on days of heavy rain, and the best view is a day or two after a storm rather than during one.