Chickasaw National Recreation Area, National Recreation Area in Murray County, Oklahoma.
Chickasaw National Recreation Area covers 9,888.83 acres (4,002 ha) near Sulphur in the Arbuckle Mountains foothills, of which 2,409 acres (975 ha) are water. Its Travertine district, the former Platt National Park, is a three-mile-long strip where Antelope and Buffalo springs release about 5 million gallons a day into Travertine Creek. Most of the area is taken up by the 2,350-acre Lake of the Arbuckles.
The Chickasaw sold 640 acres to the U.S. government in 1902, creating the Sulphur Springs Reservation to protect 32 springs; it opened to the public on April 29, 1904. Renamed Platt National Park in 1906 for Senator Orville H. Platt, it was the seventh and smallest U.S. national park. In 1976 Congress merged it with the Arbuckle Recreation Area to form Chickasaw National Recreation Area.
The name honors the Chickasaw Nation, who were relocated from the Southeastern United States in the 1830s. Fearing the springs would become a private resort as at Hot Springs, Arkansas, they sold 640 acres to the federal government in 1902. The park charges no admission fee under the tribe's arrangement with the government.
A narrow road loops through the Travertine district past parking areas, camp and picnic grounds, the Travertine Nature Center, swimming holes and springs. Trails wind through the forested creek bottomland, and the district is often crowded in summer. The Lake of the Arbuckles section holds most of the area's water and its shoreline.
Lincoln Bridge, a limestone span built in 1909 for Abraham Lincoln's 100th birthday, appeared on a 2011 America the Beautiful quarter. The 2024 Sulphur tornado struck the park from Lake of the Arbuckles into the Travertine District, damaging many areas.
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