Pickwick Landing is the name given to a dam, the lake it created, and the Tennessee state park built around it, on the Tennessee River in Hardin County, Tennessee, near the town of Savannah. It sits roughly 110 miles southeast of Memphis, close enough to Shiloh National Military Park to be visited on the same trip.
Where exactly is Pickwick Landing?
Pickwick Landing is in southwestern Tennessee, on the eastern edge of Hardin County, close to the Mississippi and Alabama state lines. The nearest town of any size is Savannah, Tennessee, the Hardin County seat, on the west bank of the Tennessee River. From Memphis, the drive runs east on I-40 and then south, a trip of around two hours depending on route — the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s own site is the place to check current road conditions before setting out.
What created Pickwick Lake?
Pickwick Lake exists because of Pickwick Dam, a hydroelectric and navigation dam built across the Tennessee River by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal power and river-management agency created in 1933. TVA’s own site records the dam as completed in 1938, one of the earlier dams in its system-wide effort to control flooding, generate electricity and make the Tennessee River navigable for barge traffic between Knoxville and the Ohio River.
The dam backs up the river into a reservoir that TVA and Tennessee state agencies call Pickwick Lake, covering roughly 43,000 acres and reaching into three states — Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. A lock built into the dam allows commercial barges and recreational boats to pass between the upper and lower river levels, which is the whole functional reason the dam and its lock exist, separate from the recreation that has grown up around the lake since.
What is Pickwick Landing State Park?
Pickwick Landing State Park is a Tennessee state park built on land adjoining the dam, run by Tennessee State Parks. According to the agency’s own park descriptions, the park includes a lodge-style inn overlooking the lake, cabins, a campground, a marina, and an 18-hole golf course, making it one of the larger resort-style state parks in Tennessee rather than a simple day-use area.
The park’s location at the dam means the lake here is at its widest and deepest point locally, which is part of why the marina and boat-launch facilities concentrate at Pickwick Landing rather than further upstream. Tennessee State Parks’ own site is the source to check for current lodge availability, campground reservations and golf course details, since all of these are the kind of practical figures that change from one season to the next.
How does Pickwick Landing connect to Shiloh?
Shiloh National Military Park, maintained by the National Park Service, sits about 20 miles upriver from Pickwick Landing, also in Hardin County. It preserves the site of the Battle of Shiloh, fought in April 1862, one of the costliest battles of the American Civil War’s western theater. The park’s proximity to Pickwick Landing is largely coincidental — both sit along the same stretch of the Tennessee River in the same county — but it means a visitor driving out from Memphis for one can reasonably plan around the other on the same day. Readers wanting the specifics of the battlefield itself should see what Shiloh National Military Park is and where it sits.
What is there to do at Pickwick Landing?
The activities at Pickwick Landing follow directly from what the place is: a dam-created lake with a state park built around it. Tennessee State Parks’ own materials describe the park’s offerings as centered on the water and the golf course:
- Boating and fishing on Pickwick Lake, which is known regionally for striped bass and crappie fishing below the dam tailwater, according to Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency guidance.
- Golf on the park’s 18-hole course, one of the state park system’s resort courses.
- Camping and cabin stays through the park’s own reservation system.
- Lake swimming and beach access at designated park areas, which the park’s own site should be checked for current status and any seasonal closures.
None of this is a boutique or curated experience in the way a museum or a historic district is — it is a working reservoir with public recreation facilities attached to a federal dam, and it functions accordingly: seasonal, weather-dependent, and governed by lake levels that TVA adjusts for flood control and power generation across the wider river system.
Is Pickwick Landing worth a day trip from Memphis?
That is a two-hour-plus drive each way, which makes Pickwick Landing more realistic as an overnight or weekend trip than a single day out of Memphis, particularly if Shiloh National Military Park is added to the itinerary. A day trip is possible for a visitor primarily interested in the drive and a few hours on the water or at the dam overlook, but it leaves little time for the park’s fuller offerings — the golf course, an extended fishing trip, or an overnight stay at the lodge.
For readers weighing this against other options within range of Memphis, the general shape of the region’s day-trip landscape — what’s genuinely a single day and what needs an overnight — is covered on the site’s day trips archive, alongside other Tennessee and Mississippi destinations such as Reelfoot Lake and Holly Springs, Mississippi.
How does Pickwick Landing fit with the rest of the region?
Pickwick Landing belongs to a pattern common across west Tennessee and the mid-South: a TVA-built dam creating a reservoir, followed by a state park developed around the shoreline for recreation. It is not part of the Memphis riverfront system, and it should not be confused with anything on the Mississippi River itself — Pickwick Lake sits on the Tennessee River, a separate waterway that joins the Ohio River well north of Memphis. Readers wanting the Memphis riverfront proper, including what’s actually along it and how it’s being redeveloped, can start with what lives along the Memphis riverfront or the Riverline and current riverfront plans.
For anyone building out a broader Memphis visit that includes a trip like this one, the site’s Memphis guide hub covers the museums, landmarks and neighborhoods that fill out the time in the city itself, while the practical planning hub covers logistics such as getting a rental car sorted before a drive this long. Those planning wider outdoor time around Memphis, including the state parks closer to the city, can also check the parks and riverfront archive and what Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park offers as a much shorter alternative to a full trip out to Pickwick.
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Access Memphis is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources. We have not visited the places described here and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented ‘local favourites’ — where something is singled out as notable, we say who says so. Opening times, fares, closures and prices change at short notice, so treat everything here as a starting point and confirm with the museum, operator or venue directly before building a day around it. We give no advice on visas, insurance, health or safety; use your own government’s official guidance for those.