How to take a Walk through History at Collier-Seminole State Park

Collier-Seminole park was donated to the state of Florida by the Barron Collier who was a advertising tycoon. The park have around 7,271 acres with several trails, provides habitats for Florida’s wildlife, and a bit of history littered throughout the park.

As you enter the park, on the right, the last existing Bay City Walking Dredge sits. This helped create the Tamiani Trail which linked Tampa to Miami through the Everglades and the Big Cypress Swamp.

The park also has a Blockhouse which housed the caretaker. It was build about 1940 but based of the style of a blockhouse from the third Seminole War.

Around the corner from the Blockhouse is a historical styled Seminole Indian Village. The area around and in the park was the last place that the Seminole Indian’s keep a stronghold and the last war between them and the American government.

The park also holds a memorial for Barron Collier who offered the park to the Federal Government who passed on it. It was taken over by the county park then turned over to the state in 1944.

One of the trails is the Royal Palm Hammock Nature Trail which is just under a mile long which goes into the salt water marches of the area.

The trail takes you along to several different environments and the smell of the forest changes as you go along.

Each area completely different…

and with completely different fragenaces….

Plus complete different views from being closed in to open fields of Royal Palms.

In addition, the park has the Blackwater Rivers which meanders 13.5 miles through the park for canoes and kayaks which the park rents as while as bikes.

The park also included camping and laundry for campers. Even better, next to the park is a nice bar with live music for those that want to be in nature in the day but party a bit in the evening.

Brief History

The Bay City Walking Dredge was used six days a week. The Tamiami Trail was completed in 1928. The road across the Everglades was believed to be impossible but Barron Gift Collier used his money on the west coast and the Chevalier Corporation on the east coast.

It was started in 1915 but interrupted during WWI. The Bay City Walking Dredge was the machine that made it possible. The two man crew work ten hours a day living on floating barges or trailers.

It walking dredger would move out the muck from the ancient seabed of limestone. As the men worked the dredger, another crew worked to compact the fill and construct the road. The road would develop the Southwest of Florida.

For more on Barron Gift Collier, check out PBS documentary.

Books

The Swamp is all about the politics of the Everglades of Florida. The area was both the place of dreams and nightmare including a storm that killed 2,500 people in 1928. Learn more about the beginning of the Everglades before recorded time to the present as we are trying to get the natural habitats back from the brink of collapse of the ecosystem of the Everglades.