Great Council State Park — Attraction in Xenia Township

A wonderful FREE historical State Park in progress!

Both parking lots are a mess. There are 4 entry/exit points in the gravel lot. People park where there are not spots, blocking an entry/exit. It's an accident waiting to happen. There is a very small lot that is paved and only has a few handicap spaces. The gravel lot has no connection somewhere safe for pedestrians. Thus, people are walking on the freshly seeded grass. They have pedestrians walking into oncoming vehicles entering into the paved lot. Better signage should have been added to the gravel lot. If the parking situation were safer, I'd give it another star.

Inside, there are three floors of things to see. Great history of the area. There is an informative movie that plays all day.

Fully wheelchair accessible. ADA compliant doors, elevator and restrooms. The restrooms are in the lobby. Skimped on the men's restroom, as there is only one stall.

There are a few picnic tables out back in the open. Would be great to see those covered in the future.

Much more information on the outside all around the building. There is one trail around the current wildflowers. It started to rain, so we will visit that...

It's a beautiful museum or nature center but I would not call it a "park". I'm giving it a lower ranking for driving so far just to be disappointed by the misuse of the word "park". I like to hike and walk for hours but their little grass loop isn't much and I was all geared up for nothing. Maybe lack of research on my part for assuming state park meant more than a nature center and difficult parking. But I can imagine it will expand quite a bit over time and hopefully add a trail that connects to the John Bryan State Park since it is so close or just another way to access the Little Miami trail because I read it is 78 miles long. That would make it a "park" for me because there'd be more opportunity to submerge myself in nature rather than stay in a building -- although beautiful and I like the sculptures. And maybe they'll add some more interactive natural spaces for kids too. Would be cool if the land was given back to the people the video they show says it was stollen from. That would be...

We visited for the first time today the Great Council State Park. This is Ohio's newest State Park and honors Ohio's native Americans but with a focus on the Shawnee tribe. Before the white man came the Shawnee were here and embedded in the Ohio landscape. Unfortunately they were pushed out of their native homelands to a reservation in Oklahoma. The white man sent the remaining Shawnee and other native Americans to forced schools with the goal of erasing their culture in its entirety. This is covered in the museum and the state does not whitewash the terrible history of what was done. The museum covers a lot of history as well as the Shawnee way of life. There are some rather limited hiking trails with more to come with hopeful park land expansion. There is a lot of potential here and we hope they...