Cherokee State Park (now Kenslake State Resort Park)

Under Jim Crow, segregation affected more than schools and coffee counters—it even spread to the great outdoors. Cherokee State Park, opened in 1951, was the first Black-only state park in the South, and only the third in the U.S.

On the banks of Kentucky Lake and adjacent to the whites-only Kenlake State Park, this 300-acre park offered a bathhouse for the beach, fishing, and boating docks, a 200-person dining hall, and 12 cottages for overnight stays. According to a 1952 Kentucky map, it was “the finest colored vacation site in the South.”

After desegregation in the 1960s, the park was closed. But today, it is part of Kenlake State Resort Park and an entry on the National Register of Historic Places. A recently completed two-mile trail connects historic Cherokee to the Kenlake Campground, providing a symbolic union of two parks that should always have been one.