Last Updated: August 3, 2026
Land Between the Lakes is a National Recreation Area in western Kentucky and Tennessee. The area is formed by Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, which run parallel to each other for more than 50 miles. Lake Barkley, 58,000 acres, was formed by Barkley Dam impounding the Cumberland River, completed in 1966 by the Army Corps of Engineers. Kentucky Lake, 160,000 acres, was formed by Kentucky Dam impounding the Tennessee River in 1944, a TVA project and still the largest artificial lake by surface area in the eastern United States. At Grand Rivers the two come within about a mile of each other and are joined by a canal, which means a boat can pass from one river system to the other. The 170,000 acres left standing between them make up the largest inland peninsula in the country. It is very popular for water sports, hunting, fishing, mountain biking and hiking. From Cave City, Kentucky it was about a two-and-a-half hour drive.
Prizer Point KOA, Land Between the Lakes
We had full hookups. Their WiFi was fast enough to stream. Our views of Lake Barkley were stunning.
The property was huge and included a marina. There were plenty of areas to walk. We enjoyed a couple of nice sunsets.
A red-headed woodpecker frequented the trees by our site, and it was a better sighting than we realised at the time. This is a species in steep decline — it has lost a very large share of its population over the past half century, mostly because the open woodland it needs keeps getting tidied up. It wants scattered trees with plenty of standing dead timber, which is exactly what the flooded shoreline of a reservoir produces. There is an irony in that: the same impoundments that drowned the bottomland here manufactured perfect habitat for this bird.
It is also an unusual woodpecker in two ways. It hawks insects out of the air like a flycatcher rather than only chiselling them out of bark. And it stockpiles food — nuts, seeds, insects, even live grasshoppers wedged into crevices so tightly they cannot climb out — and it is the only woodpecker in North America known to cover its caches with pieces of bark or wood.
Elk & Bison Prairie, Land Between the Lakes
It is a 700-acre preserve that was opened in 1996, with a 3.5-mile one-way paved loop you drive at walking pace. Over 300 years ago, bison and elk inhabited the region. However, with overhunting and destruction of the natural grasslands, both ceased to exist in the area — bison were effectively gone from Kentucky by around 1800, and elk not long after.
They mattered more than most people realise. The paths bison wore through Kentucky on their way to the salt licks were the first roads in the state; settlers followed the traces, the traces became wagon roads, and a surprising number of Kentucky highways still run where the herds walked.
Small areas of grassland continued to grow. With proper fire management, these areas grew large enough to reintroduce bison and elk, and they have flourished since. The elk were brought in from Alberta.
The order of operations there is the interesting part. This was never forest by default — it was grassland, and it stayed grassland because grazing animals and regular fire kept the woody growth beaten back. Take the bison away and stop the burning and the trees close it in, which is exactly what happened here over about 150 years. So restoring the animals meant restoring the fire first: prescribed burns to knock back the scrub and let the native grasses come back, and only then were there enough acres of real prairie to put anything on. The animals did not just live in this habitat. They were part of what made it.
We didn’t see the elk the day we visited. Same lesson as the Smokies the week before — elk are crepuscular and spend the middle of the day in cover. Drive the loop in the first hour after sunrise or the last hour before dark and your odds change completely. The bison are out all day and are not shy.
The 270 Cemeteries
There are over 270 cemeteries in the Land Between the Lakes area. The cemeteries are the only remnants of the communities that existed here before — and the full story is worse than the lakes.
The two reservoirs took the bottomland and the river towns. Kentucky Dam flooded Birmingham and others in the 1940s; Barkley did the same on the Cumberland side twenty years later. But the peninsula in the middle stayed dry, and people went on living on it. Then in 1963 President Kennedy designated it a National Recreation Area, and TVA used eminent domain to buy out everyone still there — around 800 families. This time the land was not needed to hold water. It was cleared to make a recreation area. Golden Pond, Model, Tharpe, Fenton and the rest were emptied out; the Golden Pond post office closed in 1968 and the last residents left in 1970.
They call themselves Between the Rivers, and the identity has outlasted the addresses by sixty years. Descendant families still come back. The Forest Service Heritage Program, working with those families and a perpetual fund administered across Trigg, Lyon and Stewart counties, keeps the cemeteries mown, accessible and open for visitation. Some are a short walk off a gravel road with no sign at all. If you stumble on one, you have found the last standing piece of a town.
It is the third park in three weeks with the same story underneath it. The Great Smoky Mountains were assembled out of more than a thousand small farms, and the daffodils people planted at their doorsteps still come up in the empty forest. Mammoth Cave took farms, churches and cemeteries by eminent domain. Here, the graves are the marker. None of that makes these places less worth visiting. It just means somebody paid for them.
Golden Pond, and the Whiskey
Golden Pond was the main town between the rivers. Its post office opened on December 28, 1848, and the settlement had grown up around a saloon serving the iron furnace and timber crews — it was originally called Fungo, which somebody sensibly upgraded. It never had more than a couple of hundred residents.
What made it famous was Prohibition. The land between the rivers was hard to reach, hard to police and full of clean springs and corn, and Golden Pond whiskey developed a genuine reputation for quality — good enough that it was shipped north to Chicago, and local history has Al Capone’s buyers flying into an airstrip at Fenton, a few miles west, to collect it. The town is gone now. The Golden Pond visitor center, the planetarium and LBL’s headquarters stand roughly where it was, and an interpretive overlook on US 68 shows etched-glass outlines of the buildings that used to be there.
Casey Jones Distillery
And here is where the two halves of this post turn out to be the same story. Casey Jones was Golden Pond’s master still maker. He did not run whiskey himself so much as build the equipment that everyone else ran it on — for more than thirty years, and the last one in 1967. He charged around $20 a still, roughly $350 in today’s money, and his work was distinctive enough that revenue agents could identify a Casey Jones still on sight.
His grandson, Arlon Casey “AJ” Jones, opened this distillery legally in November 2014 and built it around his grandfather’s last still as the design template. So the town is gone, the cemeteries are all that is left of it, and the whiskey is now made in the open, in a purpose-built distillery, out of a still design that used to get people arrested.
We are much better at the subtleties of wine tasting compared to whiskey and bourbon. The high alcohol — 118 proof — and strong oak aromas are something neither of us is accustomed to, but we enjoyed the challenge.
For anyone else in the same boat, there is one trick that changes everything at that strength. Above roughly 100 proof, ethanol is doing something to your nose and tongue that has nothing to do with flavour — it is triggering the same receptors that respond to heat, so the burn drowns out everything underneath. A few drops of plain water knocks the proof down, breaks up the alcohol molecules clustering at the surface, and releases aromatic compounds that were physically trapped. Add water a little at a time and a barrel-proof whiskey will open up into fruit, caramel and grain. It is not diluting the good stuff; it is getting it out.
Casey Jones had 10 distillations to sample. The staff were very good at describing the taste profile of each of their products. After the sampling we discovered they had a funky lounge to enjoy a beverage, or a large outdoor patio overlooking a lake and a pasture filled with cows. What a fun and beautiful setting.
Visitor Information
Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. Managed by: the USDA Forest Service — TVA ran it from 1963 until Congress transferred it in 1998–99, so it is a national forest unit, not a national park. Size: about 170,000 acres, roughly 40 miles long. Main road: the Woodlands Trace National Scenic Byway runs the length of the peninsula. Headquarters: Golden Pond Visitor Center, 238 Visitor Center Drive, Golden Pond, KY 42211, 270-924-2000. Fees: no fee to enter or drive through; individual attractions charge separately.
Elk & Bison Prairie. 700 acres with a 3.5-mile one-way paved loop. Open: sunrise to sunset, 365 days. Fee: $5 per vehicle, self-pay at the entrance. Rules: enclosed vehicles only — no motorcycles, bicycles or pedestrians — and stay in your car. These are wild bison, not livestock. Best time: the first or last hour of daylight, and cooler parts of the day in summer.
Also in LBL. The Golden Pond Planetarium and Observatory at the visitor center. The Woodlands Nature Station on the north end, with native wildlife including red wolves. The Homeplace 1850s Working Farm on the Tennessee side, a living-history farm with costumed interpreters. The South Bison Range near the Homeplace, which you can see from the road for free. And the Golden Pond Interpretive Overlook on US 68, dedicated in 2016, which lays out what the town looked like.
Casey Jones Distillery. 2815 Witty Lane, Hopkinsville, KY 42240 — about half an hour from Cadiz, so worth pairing with a drive rather than treating as a quick stop. Tours and tastings seven days a week, plus the lounge, the patio, live music and food trucks. Check current hours before setting out.
Kentucky Lakes / Prizer Point KOA. 1777 Prizer Point Road, Cadiz, KY — still operating as a KOA. Full hookups, usable WiFi, a marina, and waterfront sites on Lake Barkley. Large property with room to walk the dog.
Tips
Do the Elk & Bison Prairie loop twice. It is $5 and takes half an hour. Go once in the middle of the day for the bison, and again at last light for a real chance at the elk. Nothing else in the park rewards a second pass as reliably.
Stay in the vehicle, and use a long lens. Bison are faster than they look and this herd is genuinely wild. Shoot through an open window with the engine off — the car doubles as a hide and the animals ignore it.
Add water to anything over 100 proof. A few drops at a time. It is the difference between tasting alcohol and tasting whiskey, and any tasting-room staff will hand you a pipette if you ask.
Book waterfront early. The lakeside sites at Prizer Point are the reason to be there, and they go first. The interior sites are perfectly fine but you lose the whole point.
Drive the Woodlands Trace end to end. It is about 40 miles from Grand Rivers to Dover, Tennessee, and it strings together the visitor center, the prairie, the Nature Station and the Homeplace. Allow a full day if you stop.
Look for the cemeteries. Many are unmarked from the road and reached on foot. They are the only physical trace of the towns, and finding one changes how the rest of the peninsula reads.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a fee to visit Land Between the Lakes?
No fee to enter the recreation area or drive the Woodlands Trace. Individual attractions charge: the Elk & Bison Prairie is $5 per vehicle, and the Nature Station, Homeplace and planetarium each have their own admission.
Where do you see bison at Land Between the Lakes?
The Elk & Bison Prairie near Golden Pond — a 700-acre enclosure with a 3.5-mile one-way loop you drive, open sunrise to sunset for $5 per vehicle. There is also the South Bison Range on the Tennessee side near the Homeplace, viewable from the road at no charge. Elk share the prairie but are far harder to catch; go at dawn or dusk.
Why are there so many cemeteries in Land Between the Lakes?
Because there were towns here. Two reservoirs flooded the river bottoms in the 1940s and 1960s, and then in 1963 the peninsula itself was condemned to create the recreation area, moving out around 800 remaining families. The graves stayed. More than 270 historic cemeteries are maintained inside the boundary, and descendant families still visit them.
What was Golden Pond, Kentucky?
The main town between the rivers, with a post office from 1848 and a couple of hundred residents. During Prohibition it became known for high-quality moonshine that was shipped as far as Chicago. Its post office closed in 1968 and the last residents left in 1970. LBL’s headquarters and visitor center now stand near the site.
Is Land Between the Lakes a national park?
No. It is a National Recreation Area administered by the USDA Forest Service, not the National Park Service. TVA created and ran it from 1963 until management transferred to the Forest Service in 1999.
Who was Casey Jones the still maker?
Golden Pond’s master still builder — not the railroad engineer of the ballad. He made copper stills for local moonshiners for over thirty years, the last in 1967, for about $20 each, and his work was recognisable enough that federal agents could identify one on sight. His grandson opened Casey Jones Distillery legally in 2014, built around that final still’s design.
How much time do you need at Land Between the Lakes?
Two full days covers the Woodlands Trace, the prairie twice, the Nature Station and the Homeplace. A long weekend is comfortable. If you are here to fish or boat, people stay for weeks.
Next stop: Louisville, Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries.
