Cummins Falls State Park

Cummins Falls is a 75-foot waterfall on the Blackburn Fork, in a gorge northwest of Cookeville. By one conservancy's count it ranks eighth in Tennessee by the volume of water it carries, and the pool at its foot is one of the best-known swimming holes in the state. Getting there is part of the experience. The trail to the base wades the river and crosses slick rock, the gorge floods quickly after rain upstream, and the state requires a permit to enter it.

The land has a paper trail. In 1790 Benjamin Blackburn, for whom the river is named, took the tract by cashing in a voucher for his service in battle against the Chickamauga Cherokee. In 1825 he sold it to John Cummins, a Scottish mill builder who put a mill on the falls. The Cummins family held the land until 2011.

That year TennGreen and a long list of partners, among them state agencies and the Nature Conservancy, bought 186 acres at auction in place of a proposed housing development. The state dedicated the park in 2012 as its 54th. The gorge is flash-flood country, and the state posts water-level notices, so check them before driving out.