| Cumberland Falls State Resort Park | |
| Type: | Kentucky state park |
| Location: | McCreary County & Whitley County, Kentucky, United States |
| Nearest City: | Corbin, Kentucky |
| Map: | Kentucky#USA |
| Map Label: | Cumberland Falls State Resort Park |
| Coords: | 36.8408°N -84.3328°W |
| Established: | August 21, 1931 |
| Operator: | Kentucky Department of Parks |
| Visitation Num: | 750,000+ |
| Visitation Year: | 2009 |
| Status: | Open year-round |
Cumberland Falls State Resort Park is a park located just southwest of Corbin, Kentucky, and is contained entirely within the Daniel Boone National Forest.[1] The park encompasses and is named for its major feature, 68adj=midNaNadj=mid Cumberland Falls. The falls are one of the few places in the western hemisphere where a moonbow can frequently be seen on nights with a full moon. The park is also the home of 44feet Eagle Falls. The section of the Cumberland River that includes the falls was designated a Kentucky Wild River by the Kentucky General Assembly through the Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves' Wild Rivers System. The forest in the park is also a dedicated State Nature Preserve.
After the discussion of building a hydroelectric power plant above the falls in 1927, Kentucky native T. Coleman du Pont offered to buy the falls and surrounding acreage in order to create a state park. Although he died before he could purchase the land, his wife purchased the falls and the surrounding it for $400,000 on March 10, 1930, after the Kentucky General Assembly (legislature) approved the creation of the state park. Cumberland Falls was dedicated as a state park at 1:30 p.m. on August 21, 1931.[2]
Following a $2 million renovation project in 2006, the park received an upgraded rating from two diamonds to three diamonds from the American Automobile Association (AAA) in 2007. Kentucky Dam Village State Resort Park also received the upgraded rating. The two facilities were the first state resort parks to achieve the three-diamond rating following AAA's revision of its rating system in 2001.[3]
The 1955 western The Kentuckian, starring Burt Lancaster, was partly filmed at Cumberland Falls.
An establishing shot of Cumberland Falls is used in the 1997 action film Fire Down Below starring Steven Seagal.
Silas House, the poet laureate of Kentucky, published a popular poem called "Cumberland Falls" in The Bitter Southerner magazine that uses the falls as a setting and a metaphor. It was also selected as a featured poem by the Academy of American Poets. Cumberland Falls also serves as a scene setting in Lee Cole's 2022 novel, Groundskeeping, House's 2001 novel Clay's Quilt, and Kim Trevathan's 2006 memoir, Coldhearted River.