Established in 1998, Cumberland Trail State Park became Tennessee’s 53rd state park, and the largest state park in Tennessee with 35,5000 acres. It is Tennessee’s first linear park, cutting through 11 Tennessee counties.

The Cumberland Trail follows a line of pristine high ridges and deep gorges lying along the eastern escarpment of Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau. Once completed, the hiking trail will extend over 300 miles from the Cumberland Gap to Lookout Mountain.

The idea of a hiking trail tracing the eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau first emerged in the 1960s. Inspired by the success of the Appalachian Trail and the passage of the 1968 National Trails System Act, Mack Pritchard, who was the naturalist for the Division of State Parks, spearheaded the effort for the creation of the Cumberland Trail. In a series of meetings in the late 1960s, Prichard outlined 2,237 miles system of trails, and the proposed the Cumberland Trail was selected by the newly formed Tennessee Trails Association as a pilot project to demonstrate the feasibility of the state trails system. 

Over the next few years, several people working with the Tennessee Trail Association (TTA) and the Cumberland Trail Conference (CTC) to attain property and building trails. In the 1970s, TTA was instrumental in crafting legislation for Tennessee Trail System Act on 1971 and creating the Cumberland Trail State Scenic Trail. Other administrative names have since been attached to the endeavor—Cumberland State Scenic Trail, Cumberland Trail State Park, and Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park.