Discovery Park of America facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Discovery Park of America

Date opened	November 1, 2013
Location	830 Everett Blvd., Union City, Tennessee 38261
Land area	50.0 acres (20.2 ha)

Discovery Park of America is an awesome museum and heritage park located in Union City, Tennessee. It sits on a huge 50 acres (20 ha) piece of land. The park has tons of cool exhibits and activities. You can learn about local history, nature, military history, art, and science! It's a great place to explore and discover new things.

History of Discovery Park

Discovery Park of America started from a smaller museum called the Obion County Museum. This museum had been around for 40 years, run by amazing volunteers. In 2005, a local businessman named Robert E. Kirkland had a big idea. He wanted to build a much larger, super cool museum in Union City.

Mr. Kirkland and his wife, Jenny D. Kirkland, wanted to help their community. They gathered a small team to plan this exciting new place. They wanted to make sure the idea was possible before telling everyone.

After their first plans, a Canadian architect named Douglas Cardinal was chosen to design the new building and its exhibits. The team wanted the community to be involved. So, many local volunteers helped plan the different galleries and exhibits. Mr. Kirkland named the new place Discovery Park of America. He asked his friend, Jim Rippy, to lead the new board of directors.

The North grounds of the heritage park.

Construction began on July 1, 2008. But then, the first architect was changed. New teams from Boston and New York City took over the design in 2010. Lou Sirianni designed the main building. Tom Henness designed the exhibits. Mr. Kirkland told them to create a building that would make people stop and look! It also needed an observation tower and a grand hall. Construction continued for almost three years. The park also has a beautiful 50-acre outdoor area with lakes and waterfalls.

The park is located near a future highway called Interstate 69. This highway will connect Canada to Mexico! Being near it means lots of visitors from other cities like St. Louis and Memphis can easily come for a day trip.

In January 2013, Jim Rippy became the full-time CEO. He helped get everything ready for opening. Donors and supporters got a special preview on October 15, 2013. The park officially opened to everyone on November 1, 2013. The whole project took almost ten years and cost about $80 million. The Kirkland family set up a special fund to help the park for many years.

In 2018, Scott Williams became the new CEO. He used to work at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., and at Graceland in Memphis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Discovery Park closed for a short time to keep everyone safe. But they shared fun and educational content online! They even held their Historical Theater Academy classes online. The park uses its website and social media to share updates and cool educational stuff.

In December 2020, Discovery Park opened a new exhibit called AgriCulture: Innovating for our Survival. It teaches visitors about new ways farmers grow food and fiber. CEO Scott Williams said it would help people understand how food gets from the farm to their families.

Discovery Park also has a podcast called Reelfoot Forward: A West Tennessee Podcast. It talks about the culture and history of West Tennessee. CEO Scott Williams interviews interesting guests from different fields in each episode.

What to Explore at Discovery Park

Discovery Park of America has a huge main building and a big outdoor park. There's so much to see and do!

The Discovery Center Building

The main building, called Discovery Center, is three floors tall and covers 100,000 sq ft (9,300 m²). It has 9 main exhibit areas, a special hall for changing exhibits, a theater, an observation tower, a cafe, and a gift shop. The building is super strong, built to resist small earthquakes.

Here are some of the amazing permanent exhibit galleries inside Discovery Center:

• The Energy Gallery: Learn all about electricity! See how it's made, stored, and used. There's a giant interactive turbine and a solar-powered airplane race.
• The Enlightenment Gallery: This is like a "Cabinet of Curiosities." It has unique and interesting artifacts that don't fit anywhere else. You can see a small copy of the Ark of the Covenant, a suit of armor, and even a replica of the Rosetta Stone. Many items are from Robert Kirkland's own collection!
• The Military Gallery: This gallery is on two floors! It shows off weapons from the American Civil War, including part of a warship. You can also see items from World War I, a replica of a British Mark I tank, and a Boeing-Stearman Model 75 airplane. You can even touch a Jeep and a Humvee, and climb into a Sikorsky UH-34D helicopter! There are hundreds of artifacts from the Korean War and Vietnam War too.

The Native American Gallery

• The Native American Gallery: This gallery has over 4,800 Native American artifacts! They are arranged along a timeline, showing history from the earliest times to more recent periods. It's one of the biggest exhibits of its kind in the eastern United States. You can also see a 12,000-year-old woolly mammoth skeleton!
• The Natural History Gallery: This area includes the Grand Hall, also known as Dinosaur Hall. It focuses on paleontology (studying fossils) and geology (studying Earth). You'll see six full-size dinosaur skeletons, like Apatosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex! There are also three mosasaurs, a huge megalodon jaw, a saber-toothed cat, and hundreds of other fossils. Don't miss the mineral wall and an interactive globe showing plate tectonics.
• The Regional History Gallery: This gallery has live animals like snakes, turtles, salamanders, and frogs! There's also a huge 20,000-gallon aquarium with fish from the local area. Park staff do daily programs here. You can also learn about Reelfoot Lake and experience an Earthquake Simulator room that shows how the lake was formed by earthquakes.
• The Space, Science, & Technology Gallery: This gallery takes up most of the third floor! It has a copy of the Gutenberg Printing Press, a display of communication technology, a Big Bang simulator, and a model of our Solar System. You can also see a 640-pound piece of the Nantan meteorite and watch short films about science and space.
• Simmons Bank Children's Exploration Gallery: This fun area is perfect for younger kids and includes a toddler play area called Fantasy Forest. There's an antique toy exhibit, a water table, and a KEVA plank building area. The coolest part is a 48-foot-tall metal human that you can slide down from the third to the second floor!
• The Transportation Gallery: See over a dozen classic cars here, some from as far back as 1910! This gallery includes a 1923 Model-T, a 1959 Cadillac series 6200, and the NASCAR 2007 Chevrolet Budweiser #8 driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr.. There's also a very rare 1929 Dual-Cowl Lincoln Sport Phaeton.

Besides the permanent galleries, the ATA Traveling Exhibit Hall hosts different temporary exhibits. Past ones have included Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition and LEGO: Towers of Tomorrow. The current exhibit, Astronaut, lets you explore what life is like on the International Space Station.

Cooper Tower is a 120-foot observation deck. You can go up and look out over the Heritage Park and Union City. On a clear day, you can see about 12 miles away!

Sabin's Cafe is near the front entrance. It's named after Verne and Nonie Sabin, who took famous photos of Reelfoot Lake in the 1920s.

Outdoor Exhibits and Gardens

Outside the Discovery Center, the 50-acre heritage park has even more to explore! There are 8 exhibit areas, a hedge maze, 4 gardens, and 2 lakes.

Here are some of the outdoor exhibit areas:

• The Settlement: This area has 11 log cabins from the 1800s. They show what life was like in West Tennessee back then. You can see how people wove, cooked, washed clothes, made soap, and worked on farms.
• Mill Ridge: This section looks like early 1900s West Tennessee. It has a one-room schoolhouse from the 1890s, a feed store, a grist mill with a waterwheel, and a blacksmith shop.
• The Ag Center: Learn about farming here! It has a tractor museum, a row crop exhibit, a grape vineyard, a wildflower garden, and a sorghum mill.
• Freedom Square: This area looks like a classic "Main Street, U.S.A." It has an old-fashioned barber shop, a drug store, a firehouse, and a courthouse-style building with a copy of the Liberty Bell.

Freedom Square

• The Depot: This building shows how railroads helped Union City grow. Outside, you can see three train cars from the 1960s, a 1913 Swedish State Railways SJ B 4-6-0 Steam Engine No. 1149, and a caboose.
• The Chapel: This old church was built in 1897 in a nearby town and was moved to the park on a big truck!
• STEM Landing: This science and technology exhibit has a cool geodesic dome with NASA items. You can also see a Grumman F-11 Tiger jet and one of the last remaining Titan I ICBM units.
• The Children's Discovery Garden: This garden has a huge playground, a stream with bridges, a labyrinth, and lots of beautiful plants and flowers.

Images for kids

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  The covered bridge at Discovery Park.

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  Discovery Center Northern Perspective

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  The Firehouse at Freedom Square

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  Mill Ridge, with the North Lake in the foreground.

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  C. Grooms Smithy at Mill Ridge.