2272 N. Coley Road
662-844-8709
www.tupelobuffalopark.com
info@tupelobuffalopark.com
Hours: Monday through Thursday 9am-4pm, Friday through Saturday 9am-5pm and Sunday 11am-4pm. Trail rides will be open on Saturdays, weather permitting.
Visit The Tupelo Buffalo Park and take the tour on the Monster Bison Bus. With the largest buffalo herd East of the Mississippi River, you can get an up close and personal look on how and where buffalo live. You can even camp out over night in the Chickasaw Indian Village.
Visitors enter the park through a restored train depot building, which also houses a snack bar and souvenir shop. A 24-foot by 24-foot pavilion on the south side of the depot serves as a staging area for boarding the parks “Bison Buses”. The buses are outfitted with monster truck kits. Groups board the buses and tour the buffalo herds grazing throughout the park, with the buses pulling into protective pens, offering an opportunity to the visitor to hand-feed the buffaloes. The buffalo can weigh more than a ton each.
The herd is the pride of local businessman Dan Franklin who turned his fascination with buffaloes into one of Tupelo’s most interesting places to visit. Three hundred years ago there were millions of buffaloes roaming the American plains but by the early 1900’s, due to homestead settling and unbridled hunting, there were fewer than 1,000 remaining. Livestock farmers and dedicated conservationists have helped restore their numbers to more than 250,000.
The Buffalo Park specializes in exotic animals with the first ones coming from Canada. Some of the exotic animals you can see are monkeys, a Bengal tiger, an African lion, a Reticulated giraffe, an American black bear and a reptile section. Feature attractions to the park include a live pony carousel, horse trail rides and a petting zoo complete with pigmy goats, miniature horses, sheep and other friendly animals.
There is an exciting new activity at the Tupelo Buffalo Park called “Archeological Digging!” The Village of “Etoukouma” occupied in the 1720’s and located on the original Natchez Trace Parkway is where actual Chickasaw Indians lived and carried on day to day activities. How exciting would it be to find real artifacts from true Indian groups located here in Tupelo, MS?
There is a large party pavilion available that is ideal for tour groups and children’s special events.
