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BY CNT EDITORS
Macon, Georgia
Prehistoric mounds at Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park were constructed around 900 CE.
Viktor Posnov/Alamy
A mural greets visitors at The Woodward Hotel, which opened in downtown Macon this fall.
Jesse HortonIn Macon, Georgia’s Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park is expected to be declared the newest U.S. national park in 2023. The site features earthwork mounds constructed around 900 CE, and houses more than 2,000 artifacts from both the Mississippi culture and the Muscogee Nation, who first founded Macon on the site of the sacred Ocmulgee Old Fields. That founding will be marked in 2023 to coincide with Macon’s bicentennial, a yearlong celebration honoring these original Native American inhabitants and the enslaved people who helped build the city.
Since 2015 the city of Macon has seen 98 new businesses, 30 bars and live music venues, and 50 new restaurants pop up. Culinary highlights include Vibez, Dovetail, Felicia's Cake Factory, and the iconic H&H Soul Food. In February 2022 downtown’s first boutique hotel, Hotel Forty Five, opened inside an old bank, followed by nine-room The Woodward, which opened next to the historic Capitol Theater in October 2022. The city’s music history also runs deep—it's the hometown of Little Richard and Otis Redding, and was the home of the influential Capricorn Recording Studios in the 1970s. The studios are now Mercer Music at Capricorn, a new recording studio and music incubator that includes a Macon music history museum, and over at Macon Mall a 10,000-person amphitheater is expected to be completed in 2023. —D.L.
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