Columbus-Belmont State Park

About this park

Columbus-Belmont State Park sits on a bluff rising nearly 200 feet above the Mississippi River in far western Kentucky, commemorating the Battle of Belmont fought here on November 7, 1861, the first battle of the Civil War for a then-unknown Union officer named Ulysses S. Grant. The park interprets both sides of the engagement, which took place across the river between Columbus, Kentucky, and Belmont, Missouri. Built in part by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s after the state purchased the land in 1934, the park preserves historic Confederate earthworks and miles of trenches along its Civil War Heritage Trail, alongside a well-regarded Civil War museum housed in a restored building. The site also carries a lesser-known layer of history as a National Trail of Tears site, where the Benge detachment of Cherokee forced from their homeland camped for several days in 1838 while being ferried across the river, with those camps believed to have stood within today's park campground. As one of two official Kentucky Interpretive Centers on the Great River Road National Scenic Byway, the park draws both Civil War history visitors and Mississippi River road-trippers, and offers a 38-site campground, hiking along the bluff-top heritage trail, and strong migratory bird viewing each spring.