Here's a twist in this park's story that most folks never hear: Highlands Hammock came within a whisker of being a national park — and got turned down.
Back in the late nineteen twenties, when people first started fighting to save this hammock, they aimed high. This was one of the finest untouched subtropical forests left in the whole country, and they thought — rightly — that it deserved to be a national park, protected by the whole nation, like Yellowstone or the Smokies. So it was studied and surveyed and put forward. And the answer that came back was no. For one reason or another the hammock wasn't chosen; it didn't fit what the government wanted for a national park just then. A lot of folks would've given up right there.
But the people who loved this place didn't. If Washington wouldn't save it, they'd save it themselves. That's when Margaret Roebling stepped in with her money, and local citizens with their sweat, and instead of a national park, they made it a state park — in fact the very first one in Florida. And here's the sweet part: because it was rejected as a national park, it ended up sparking the entire Florida state park system, which has now saved hundreds of wild places all over this state. Sometimes the door that slams in your face turns out to be the best thing that ever happened. This whole green forest, and every state park in Florida after it, grew out of a no.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
