- Location
- Florida
- Current protection
- Highlands Hammock State Park
- Status
- No active campaign
- Tier
- Tier 3 · Smaller national site
- In the book
- Not featured in Undiscovered America
Why should it be a National Park?
Near Sebring, a hammock of live oaks centuries old, cabbage palms, and cypress swamp survives in the middle of Florida's ranch and citrus country, one of the finest old-growth forests left on the peninsula.
When it was threatened with clearing for farmland, the town wanted a National Park. It still deserves that standing.
The history of National Park Campaigns
In 1930, facing plans to clear the land for farming, Mayor C. S. Donaldson and local residents proposed a National Park at what was then called Hooker Hammock. The land was saved instead as one of Florida's first state parks.
- Distinct National Park attempts
- 1 (1930)
- Other designation attempts
- 1 (state park)
Sources
- Florida State Parks, "History of Highlands Hammock"
- Wikipedia, List of proposed National Parks of the United States
- 1930
Mayor C. S. Donaldson and locals propose a Hooker Hammock National Park to save the hammock from farmland development.
- 1935
The hammock becomes Highlands Hammock State Park, among the first in Florida's state park system.