Mousetail Landing State Park

Mousetail Landing sits on the east bank of the Tennessee River in Perry County, on the site of a river village that was busy in the late 1800s. The village's main exports were leather goods, shipped to Paducah, Louisville, Evansville and St. Louis. The park keeps what is left: the first pier, a blacksmith shop and Parrish Cemetery, all treated as archaeological ruins, along a short Historic Landing Trail.

The name is a story. Legend says a fire at the landing's tannery sent mice running toward the river. One version puts the fire in the early 1800s, another sets it in the Civil War, and a third says only that the village's cowhides were said to draw the rodents. The versions disagree, so take it as local legend.

The park was dedicated in 1986 and is among the state's newest. It is mostly a place for water and woods. Three paddling routes start from the park: the Spring Creek embayment, a no-wake stretch where bald eagles, herons and ospreys are seen in summer, the more primitive Slough, and Lick Creek. An eight-mile hiking trail has two screened shelters, one on a limestone bluff above the river and Busseltown Wildlife Management Area. Fishing is from the shoreline or the pier.