Month: October 2021

We first visited Fort Cooper State Park many years ago for a short visit, intending to return. We talked of visiting again every time we passed the sign, or saw it on a map as we planned a different trip. Finally we did it. We found it even better than we remembered, and lingered a while this time. They have wonderful hiking trails, good birding, and we found the Seminole Trail.

This four kiosk trail tells the story of the Seminole tribe of Native Peoples, relocated to this area by the government in 1823 from their north Florida homes. As they adapted to the new area, with lakes and swamps unlike their upland homeland, decisions made by the government once again called for their removal. The Second Seminole War started in 1835.

A campaign in 1836 led by General Scott marched forward. At a lake now called Lake Holathlikaha he left the wounded and sick soldiers under the command of Major Cooper, who built a fort on the lake’s edge to protect his men until reinforcements arrived. The Seminole attacked the fort, now called Fort Cooper. They laid seige for 16 days, the fort holding until the relief column arrived.

The park brochure and website contain more of the history, and the Seminole Trail kiosks start with the relocation and adaptation to this area, along with descriptions of how they lived and what they ate, through the war years. I looked further and found a free book called “Florida Seminole Wars Heritage Trail” at this link: https://files.floridados.gov/media/695430/seminole_war_heritage_trail.pdf.

The trail starts with the first kiosk located near the park Rec Center. The easy to follow trail continues near the lake, and then goes to the right to the location of Fort Cooper, part of it the paved Withlacoochee trail. Spaced along the trails we found stakes with maps showing your location, a wonderful idea and easy to follow.

We found the birding very good in the area of the lake, not surprising as it is part of the Florida Great Birding Trail. Private boats are not allowed on the lake, but canoe and kayak rentals are available. We saw three more trails in addition to the Seminole Trail and the Withlacoochee Trail.

Reviews on this city park varied so we decided to discover it for ourselves. We drove by the first day when we saw the full parking lot with cars waiting for another to pull out. We later learned that there is overflow parking on another road. We returned at 8 a.m. on a weekday expecting fewer cars but finding the parking lot nearly full already. We squeezed into an available space and began our walk.

The paved, multi-use trail lived up to the multi-use. Walkers, runners, bicyclists, and many people walking dogs meandered, ran, trotted or whizzed by. The small town feel of Dunnellon became apparent with so many of the people calling out hellos or quick comments to others, or gathering in groups for longer conversations. Of course modernization showed its face even in this remote looking area as several people walked by themselves, eyes straight ahead and carrying on a normal voice conversation on their Bluetooth (as far as we know). Nearly everyone greeted us with a nod or hello as we passed them, making it the friendliest park we know.

In those moments when we found ourselves alone on the trail the surrounding trees and swamp made us feel miles away from civilization. The park is beautiful, remote feeling, and well used by those living nearby. A park cannot get a higher recommendation than that.

I found numerous photographs of this statue of Chief Osceola on the internet, the earliest labeled circa 1950s. The statue, by Bernice West, stands in Osceola’s Garden at Silver Springs State Park, one of several garden areas along the walkway along the spring. The plaque tells the story of October 23, 1834 when the Seminole met in council at the Springs to discuss the demands of the United States government that they move to the west. Osceola’s oratory and arguments against the removal carried the day and The Great Seminole War started not long afterwards.

As I searched for information on the sculptor and the gardens, I studied many of the photographs taken through the years. The backgrounds caught my interest, they of course vary as the park changed. The colorful background you see in this photograph is a large, beautiful painting on a concrete pad behind the statue. As Karl took these photographs, I did a quick search of the perimeter but did not see an artist attribution or any interpretation. It may be in the painting, but if so I did not see it. If anyone knows the artist name, please let me know so I can include it. Note in the photo below that the state of Florida directly in the middle.

We love visiting new places, but also re-visiting places we explored before. On each visit we find something that had not caught our attention previously.