TRAIL OF TEARS TO HOLD BIRTHDAY PARTY THIS WEEKEND

Special birthday party fanfare is in store this year for Trail of Tears State Park, the Bollinger Mill State Historic Site and the Missouri state park system.

Trail of Tears, north of Cape Girardeau off Highway 177, will be the site of a birthday party this weekend to celebrate the park's 35th anniversary of being donated to the state, along with the state park system's 75 years of existence.

The celebration will run from Friday the park's actual anniversary to Sunday.

Later this summer, Bollinger Mill will celebrate its 25th anniversary of becoming part of the state's park system. The mill is off Highway 34 at Burfordville.

Good crowds are expected at Trail of Tears this weekend, park Naturalist and Assistant Superintendent Greg Henson said. Door prizes of wildlife prints will be given away to every 35th and 75th person at the visitor's center.

Free balloons will be given to children, and special programs will be held each day at the center. All events are free and open to the public.

The first program will be held at 8 p.m. Friday to showcase the park's history. A second program on the park's history will be held Saturday at 2 p.m.

"We've got a bunch of stories of what happened since the turn of the century until the park was established," he said.

Presenting the programs will be Marie Exler. Exler is now a park historian who resides near Trail of Tears. She lived in Trail of Tears at one time and remembers the area before it was a park, said Henson.

Others who lived around the park, he said, also will be on hand to talk about its history.

"Probably very few people know how the park became a park, other than the people who were directly involved with it," said Henson. "It's a piece of history that happened 35 or 40 years ago. The stories haven't been kept up over the years for (most) people."

Basically, he said, the park came into existence when county residents bought it and donated it to the state. The park was donated June 4, 1957.

The park commemorates the Trail of Tears, named for the forced march by the U.S. government of Cherokee Indians from their homes east of the Mississippi River to the west. Occurring in 1838 and 1839, the march resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,000 men, women and children. A portion of the route now runs through the park.

A program offered at Trail of Tears at 10 a.m. Saturday will help children work toward their Junior Naturalist Awards. At 12:30 p.m., a slide show on the Missouri state park system will be presented. A program about snakes at 4 p.m. will be followed at 7:30 p.m. by a slide show about state park wild and natural habitat areas.

Sunday's events will feature a program about spiders at 1 p.m. and one about glades at 3 p.m.

Bollinger Mill Site Administrator Jack Smoot said the mill will celebrate its 25th anniversary on July 12, a Sunday. The mill's actual anniversary is July 13.

A free folk music concert will be offered in the mill's picnic area at 4:30 p.m. by musicians Cathy Barton and David Para. They will perform traditional Missouri folk music, said Smoot.

The mill is also offering a free concert on Sunday, June 14, by the Ashland group of "Paul and Win Grace and Family." That concert will also feature traditional music and will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the park's picnic area.

Smoot said those attending the concerts should bring lawn chairs.

Trail of Tears and the Bollinger Mill are two of 77 state parks and historic sites administered by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. The director of the state's parks, Wayne Gross, said Tuesday from Jefferson City that state park programs have avoided cuts with the state's budget crunch unlike state programs funded by general revenue because the parks are funded by a portion of the state sales tax.

Missouri voters in 1984 and 1988 chose to earmark a portion of the state's tax for the park system, he said. The tax, Gross said, brings in about $23 million a year for the parks, with an equal amount for state soil conservation. The park system also picks up funding through user fees, said Gross.

Gross said the state's park system has not faced budget cuts in the last few years.

"The revenue from the tax up until this year has grown as the economy has grown. But what we're finding this year is the revenue from the tax is just about flat," he added.

The Missouri Department of Conservation has no special programs planned this summer. Jerry Eddy, assistant regional supervisor at the department's office in Cape County Park North, said department employees, as usual, will be speak to groups such as fishing clubs and Ducks Unlimited.

A self-guided nature trail, however, will open soon at the park, he said.

Eddy said the rough economic times haven't forced the conservation department to cut services yet.

"It is a concern of ours and something that we're watching very closely. It hasn't eaten into our programs too much yet."