Columbus-Belmont State Park
| Columbus-Belmont State Park | |
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Columbus-Belmont State Park Anchor
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 Location in Kentucky
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| Type | Kentucky state park |
| Location | Hickman County, Kentucky, United States |
| Coordinates | 36°45′56″N 89°06′25″W / 36.765556°N 89.106944°WCoordinates: 36°45′56″N 89°06′25″W / 36.765556°N 89.106944°W |
| Area | 156 acres (63 ha) |
| Created | 1934 |
| Operated by | Kentucky Department of Parks |
| Open | Year-round |
| Columbus-Belmont State Park Official website | |
| Built | 1861 |
| NRHP Reference # | 73000806 |
| Added to NRHP | May 09, 1973 |
Columbus-Belmont State Park, on the shores of the Mississippi River in Hickman County, near Columbus, Kentucky, is the site of a Confederate fortification built during the American Civil War. The site was considered by both North and South to be strategically significant in gaining and keeping control of the Mississippi River.
Confederate General Leonidas Polk fortified the area now occupied by the park beginning September 3, 1861. The fort at Columbus was built upon a bluff along the "cutside" of the river. The fort was christened Fort DeRussey, but Polk referred it as the "Gibraltar of the West". He had equipped it with a massive chain that was stretched across the Mississippi to Belmont, Missouri, to block the passage of Union gunboats and supply vessels to and from Southern destinations in the western theaters of the war. Equipped also with 143 cannons, Columbus was the Northern-most Confederate base along the Mississippi, protecting Memphis, Vicksburg, and other key Southern holdings. As the northern terminus of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, Columbus was logistically tied to Confederate supply lines.
Many of the earthen fortifications, buildings, and artillery pieces were lost to erosion of the bluff during heavy flooding in the region during the 1920s. When the flooding receded in 1925, the giant chain was exposed, and the people of Columbus decided to save it for future generations. The area containing the park was purchased by the state of Kentucky in 1934.
The primary attraction in the park continues to be Polk's giant chain, which is estimated to have been over a mile long before flooding and erosion destroyed part of it. With an anchor weighing between four and six tons and each chain link being eleven inches (279 mm) long, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a stone monument to hold the chain in 1934.
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Wikipedia